Revolutions, uprisings, rebellions Books
Pan Macmillan Trotsky
Book SynopsisRevolutionary practitioner, theorist, factional chief, sparkling writer, ‘ladies’ man’ (e.g., his affair with Frieda Kahlo), icon of the Revolution, anti-Jewish Jew, philosopher of everyday life, grand seigneur of his household, father and hunted victim, Trotsky lived a brilliant life in extraordinary times. Robert Service draws on hitherto unexamined archives and on his profound understanding of Russian history to draw a portrait of the man and his legacy, revealing that though his followers have represented Trotsky as a pure revolutionary soul and a powerful intellect unjustly hounded into exile by Stalin and his henchmen. The reality is very different, as this masterful and compelling biography reveals.
£15.29
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell's
Book Synopsis'A compelling and wry narrative of one of the most intellectually thrilling eras of British history' Guardian. ***************** SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020 England, 1651. Oliver Cromwell has defeated his royalist opponents in two civil wars, executed the Stuart king Charles I, laid waste to Ireland, and crushed the late king's son and his Scottish allies. He is master of Britain and Ireland. But Parliament, divided between moderates, republicans and Puritans of uncompromisingly millenarian hue, is faction-ridden and disputatious. By the end of 1653, Cromwell has become 'Lord Protector'. Seeking dragons for an elect Protestant nation to slay, he launches an ambitious 'Western Design' against Spain's empire in the New World. When an amphibious assault on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1655 proves a disaster, a shaken Cromwell is convinced that God is punishing England for its sinfulness. But the imposition of the rule of the Major-Generals – bureaucrats with a penchant for closing alehouses – backfires spectacularly. Sectarianism and fundamentalism run riot. Radicals and royalists join together in conspiracy. The only way out seems to be a return to a Parliament presided over by a king. But will Cromwell accept the crown? Paul Lay narrates in entertaining but always rigorous fashion the story of England's first and only experiment with republican government: he brings the febrile world of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate to life, providing vivid portraits of the extraordinary individuals who inhabited it and capturing its dissonant cacophony of political and religious voices. ***************** Reviews: 'Briskly paced and elegantly written, Providence Lost provides us with a first-class ticket to this Cromwellian world of achievement, paradox and contradiction. Few guides take us so directly, or so sympathetically, into the imaginative worlds of that tumultuous decade' John Adamson, The Times. 'Providence Lost is a learned, lucid, wry and compelling narrative of the 1650s as well as a sensitive portrayal of a man unravelled by providence' Jessie Childs, Guardian. Trade ReviewBriskly paced and elegantly written, Providence Lost provides us with a first-class ticket to this Cromwellian world of achievement, paradox and contradiction. Few guides take us so directly, or so sympathetically, into the imaginative worlds of that tumultuous decade -- John Adamson, Sunday TimesProvidence Lost is a learned, lucid, wry and compelling narrative of the 1650s as well as a sensitive portrayal of a man unravelled by providence -- Jessie Childs, GuardianIn telling us what Cromwell believed, Lay helps us to understand the man, but his witty and incisive book is also a reminder why the English, in particular, hate the bossy pieties of the puritanical elite, and distrust radicalism * The Times *Lay offers a vivid, clear and highly engrossing narrative of these fast moving and complicated events * Financial Times *An enlightening study of the often overlooked rule of Oliver Cromwell * Sunday Telegraph *A book for the general reader, based on a thorough knowledge of the sources, and written with perceptiveness as well as narrative zest – a lively, attention-holding account of what is surely the strangest decade in British history * Sunday Telegraph *A superb summary of the ebbs and flows of the Interregnum, a strangely 'lost' decade * Herald *[An] absorbing and beautifully written book * BBC History Magazine *A readable and witty guide to England's republican interregnum * The Times. *A highly readable book, full of wit, sober thought and scholarly rigour * Observer. *A spirited and vivid survey of the brief period in which Cromwell held the dangerously ill-defined role of "lord protector" * New Statesman *A history of Cromwell's republic that contends this was actually a period of intense creativity * Sunday Times *Fascinating new history of the English interregnum * Sunday Times *A compelling and exciting account of a critical period in early modern British history * New Books Network *A brilliant aid to understanding modern Britain and, indirectly, the United States; the lessons of the Protectorate were not lost on the founding fathers * Catholic Herald *Told in gripping fashion; each chapter is filled with enough intrigue to fuel a TV soap opera. The various warring factions are explained with vigour and clarity, while lesser-known events, such as a failed attempt to assassinate Cromwell, are packed with detail * Discover Britain *Paul Lay is bracing and undeceived in his judgments... Lay shows us what a distinctive period it was, full of frenetic excursions and alarms but for most people not unendurable, shallow-rooted in the good sense... Lay treats each volcanic caprice of the Protector's with the amused scepticism it deserves, not struggling overmuch to discern some consistent purpose behind it' * London Review of Books *What Lay gives us is a warts-and-all picture of a man with the weaknesses of any other, and who struggled heroically to stabilise, and to attempt to unite, a country shattered by a decade of civil wars * The Critic Magazine *Cromwell's republic was more energetic than we thought, reveals this brisk study * Sunday Times *Fascinating * The Times *Interesting material on the rule of Cromwell's major generals and on the debate on the succession to Cromwell and the falling out with John Lambert, who had been seen as Cromwell's deputy * Chartist *
£11.69
Profile Books Ltd Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and
Book SynopsisTHE UNTOLD STORY OF THE BERBICE SLAVE REBELLION Winner of the 2021 Cundill History Prize Winner of the 2021 Frederick Douglass Prize 'A gripping tale about the human need for freedom ... spellbinding' NPR 'Impressively detailed ... Kars provokes the reader into seeing the many sides involved in this bloody and desperate struggle with empathy and pity ... excellent' Paterson Joseph, actor and author of The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho 'A masterpiece ... a story for the ages' Elizabeth Fenn, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Encounters at the Heart of the World In February 1763, thousands of slaves in the Dutch colony of Berbice - in present-day Guyana - launched a massive rebellion - and very nearly succeeded. For an entire year, they fought their enslavers, dreaming of establishing a free state, what would have been the first Black republic. Instead, they vanished from history. Blood on the River is the explosive story of this forgotten revolution, an event that almost changed the face of the Americas. Historian Marjoleine Kars draws on long-buried Dutch interrogation transcripts to reconstruct a rich day-by-day account of this extraordinary event, providing a rare look at the political vision of enslaved people at the dawn of the Age of Revolution. An astonishing original work of history, Blood on the River will change our understanding of revolutions, slavery and the story of freedom in the New World.Trade ReviewA riveting addition to the history of the search for freedom in the Americas * Kirkus Reviews *A richly detailed account of a gripping human story -- H.W. Brands * Washington Post *[An] epic history ... A sweeping, thoughtful narrative, joining a new wave of books that make visible previously dismissed Black voices -- Carolyn Kellogg * Los Angeles Times *A gripping tale about the human need for freedom ... The story of the Berbice Rebellion begs to be told, and Kars' telling is impressive -- Martha Anne Toll * NPR Books *A model for how academic history can reach a wide audience, a narrative-driven work which presents pioneering archival scholarship in which we can hear the voices of the enslaved protagonists ... Kars represents the complexities of the rebellion without romanticising it -- Bethan Fisk * History Today *Brilliant ... 900 testimonies give unparalleled access to the complex dynamics of resistance and the voices of the enslaved ... A tour de force -- Catherine Hall FBA FRHS, Emerita Professor of History at UCL and Chair of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British SlaveryAn impressively detailed account of one of the earliest resistance battles against the horrors of slavery. Kars provokes the reader into seeing the many sides involved in this bloody and desperate struggle with empathy and pity. There's a sense of the futility of the fight against the Dutch and European Empires, but somehow she manages to convey hope and a degree of heroism on the side of those fighting for their freedom ... excellent -- Paterson Joseph, actor and author of The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius SanchoA powerful book that will appeal to experts and - thanks to the lively and accessible writing style - the general public alike * Black Perspectives *This striking study unearths a meaningful chapter in the history of slavery * Publishers Weekly *Meticulously researched and careful to prioritize the perspectives of the marginalized, Blood on the River offers a fascinating glimpse of the complex history of slavery in the Americas * Booklist *A must-read for anyone interested in slave revolts and the history of Atlantic slavery * Library Journal *[A] masterpiece ... Marjoleine Kars has unearthed a little-known rebellion in the Dutch colony of Berbice and rendered its story with insight, empathy, and wisdom. You'll find no easy platitudes herein. Instead, you'll find human beings in full relief, acting with courage, kindness, calculation, and mendacity in their quest for self-determination. Blood on the River is a story for the ages -- Elizabeth Fenn, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan PeopleTakes readers on a moving journey deep into a colonial heart of darkness. Drawing on rich and challenging sources, Marjoleine Kars reveals enslaved people making a rebellion that lingers in memory and landscape -- Alan Taylor, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Internal Enemy and William Cooper's TownThis is required reading for historians of the Black Atlantic world -- Jennifer Morgan, professor of history at New York University and author of Reckoning with SlaveryOne of the great slave revolts in modern history has at last found a gifted historian to tell its epic tale. Using a breathtaking archival discovery to make the Berbice rebels vivid flesh-and-blood actors, Marjoleine Kars deeply enriches the global scholarship on the history of slavery and resistance -- Marcus Rediker, author of The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and FreedomVivid ... The aborted attempt at freedom she chronicles provides a harrowing counterpoint to the American and French revolutions that would soon follow -- Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the WorldMarjoleine Kars has brought from the archives the voices of the enslaved, both in hope and in defeat. A tale of importance for our time -- Natalie Zemon Davis, author of Trickster Travels and The Return of Martin Guerre
£8.24
Verso Books Revolution: An Intellectual History
Book SynopsisThis book reinterprets the history of nineteenth and twentieth-century revolutions by composing a constellation of "dialectical images": Marx's "locomotives of history," Alexandra Kollontai's sexually liberated bodies, Lenin's mummified body, Auguste Blanqui's barricades and red flags, the Paris Commune's demolition of the Vendome Column, among several others. It connects theories with the existential trajectories of the thinkers who elaborated them, by sketching the diverse profiles of revolutionary intellectuals-from Marx and Bakunin to Luxemburg and the Bolsheviks, from Mao and Ho Chi Minh to José Carlos Mariátegui, C.L.R. James, and other rebellious spirits from the South-as outcasts and pariahs. And finally, it analyzes the entanglement between revolution and communism that so deeply shaped the history of the twentieth century. This book thus merges ideas and representations by devoting an equal importance to theoretical and iconographic sources, offering for our troubled present a new intellectual history of the revolutionary past.Trade ReviewOffering one of the most unsentimental yet non-reactionary meditations on revolution ever written, Traverso comes not to bury or praise the earthly drive to "take heaven by storm" but to understand it anew. Enriched by a lifelong study of historiography and politics, immense historical knowledge, theoretical polyamory, and a compelling artistic eye, this book also features splendid humility in exploring its slippery, complex and important subject. For those who long to craft a different order of things, Traverso's account is essential. For those who want to ponder what spirits revolutions or makes shipwrecks of them, this rare work roams the globe and the library, reflecting on Phnom Penh and Havana, not only Paris and Moscow, and thinking with Weber, Arendt, Fanon and Constant, not only Trotsky, Lenin and Mao. -- Wendy Brown, author of In the Ruins of NeoliberalismThis brilliant essay on the images of revolutions is a unique experiment, which has no equivalent in the vast historiographic literature on the subject. Inspired by Marx, Trotsky ,and Walter Benjamin, it is built as a montage of dialectical images, which function as lamps that illuminate the past. Enzo Traverso, probably the most gifted historian of his generation, does not hide his hostility to what he calls the "octopus of universal commodity reification"; without idealizing the past revolutions , he wants to preserve, in this fascinating and heterodox piece of research, the memory of historical experience. Quoting Benjamin: we cannot ignore the claim that the past has on us. * Michael Löwy *A perfect partnering of author and subject! Enzo Traverso is the Marxist scholar most gifted to present us with a masterfully articulated appraisal of the perplexing presence of concepts and images of revolutions in the political imagination. His astonishing scholarly expertise is on display with stunning elegance to reveal a rich tapestry of material from the 19th and 20th centuries, along with a multitude of riveting actors and thinkers. Revolution is a monumental advance in its sophisticated and supple interpretations; it is also a virtuoso performance in the art of refreshingly precise, rigorously compact exposition, complemented by a novelist's flair for narrative power and dramatic verve. -- Alan Wald, H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor Emeritus, University of MichiganBrilliant and beautiful. Now this book exists, it's hard to know how we did without it. -- China MiévilleVividly written, full of sparkling details and sharp theoretical insights... -- Hannah Proctor * Radical Philosophy *Something for every revolutionary. * Socialist Worker *
£22.50
HarperCollins Publishers Architects of Terror
Book SynopsisA TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEARFrom the preeminent historian of 20th century Spain Paul Preston, Architects of Terror is a new history of how paranoia, conspiracy and anti-Semitism was used to justify the military coup of 1936 and enabled the construction of a dictatorship built on violence and persecution.It is the previously untold story of how antisemitic beliefs were weaponised to justify and propagate the Franco overthrow of liberal Spain.The Spanish military coup of 1936 was launched to overturn the social and economic reforms of the democratic Second Republic, and its educational and cultural challenges to the established order. The consequent civil war was fought in the interests of the landowners, industrialists, bankers, clerics and army officers whose privileges were threatened. However, a central justification for a war that took the lives of around 500,000 Spaniards was that it was being fought to combat an alleged scheme for world domination by a non-existent Jewish- Masonic-Bolshevik Conspiracy'. Despite the fact that Spain had only a tiny minority of Jews and Freemasons, Franco and his inner circle were ardent believers in this fabricated conspiracy and spread the notion that the survival of Catholic Spain, as well, of course, of the establishment ' s economic interests, required the total annihilation of Jews and Freemasons.Architects of Terror is the story of how fake news, mendacity, corruption and nostalgia for lost empire generated violence and hatred. The book presents vivid portraits of the key ideologues who propagated the myth of the Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik Conspiracy and of the military figures who implemented the atrocities that it justified. Among the convictions shared by these individuals was their belief in the idea that Freemasonry was responsible for Spain ' s loss of empire and in the factual veracity of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious fiction about the global domination of the Jews.This is a history that reverberates in our own political momentTrade Review A TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR ‘Deeply researched and revealing . . . Preston’s study is based on both profound knowledge and shrewd human understanding’ Daily Telegraph, five-star review ‘Preston’s great skill lies in carefully dissecting these vile characters…This book reveals Preston at the peak of his powers; he’s an enormous intellect and a great storyteller’ The Times, Gerald DeGroot Praise for A People Betrayed (2020) A Financial Times Best History Book of 2020 ‘For decades, Paul Preston has been one of the English-speaking world’s premier historians of modern Spain. His latest book, dealing with the controversial topic of corruption in Spanish politic, public administration and business, is particularly good on the Franco dictatorship and post-Franco democratic era’ Financial Times ‘Fascinating … The depth of the book’s research cannot be faulted and the examples of grand malfeasance and political corruption are extraordinary … Buried in the narrative lies ample treasure … I applauded Preston’s heroic feat.’ Times ‘Tremendously rich and learned … Preston is one of Britain’s finest historians … This book, massively researched … Powerful, persuasive and utterly fascinating – makes for harrowing reading’ Sunday Times ‘A magisterial study of [Spain’s] turbulent past, seen through the optic of those apparently ineradicable twins: corruption and political incompetence … Races along in a riveting fashion, replete with eye-catching and often blackly humorous anecdotes …Preston’s narrative combines his gift for cogent, summarising clarity and for telling details …Preston has written an admirable book – a lively, comprehensive history of modern Spain.’ Guardian
£24.00
Penguin Books Ltd Easter 1916
Book SynopsisBefore Easter 1916 Dublin had been a city much like any other British city, comparable to Bristol or Liverpool and part of a complex, deep-rooted British world. The devastating events of that Easter changed everything. This book focuses on these events.
£14.24
Oxford University Press Inc Utopias Discontents
Book SynopsisIn April 1917, Lenin arrived at Petrograd''s Finland Station and set foot on Russian soil for the first time in over a decade. For most of the past seventeen years, the Bolshevik leader had lived in exile, moving between Europe''s many Russian colonies--large and politically active communities of émigrés in London, Paris, and Geneva, among other cities. Thousands of fellow exiles who followed Lenin on his eastward trek in 1917 were in a similar predicament. The returnees plunged themselves into politics, competing to shape the future of a vast country recently liberated from tsarist rule. Yet these activists had been absent from their homeland for so long that their ideas reflected the Russia imagined by residents of the faraway colonies as much as they did events on the ground. The 1917 revolution marked the dawn of a new day in Russian politics, but it also represented the continuation of decades-long conversations that had begun in emigration and were exported back to Russia. Faith Trade ReviewWhen discussing the effects of the Russian Revolution, much scholarly energy has been expended on whether ideology or the experience of taking power was responsible for Bolshevik policy. In this meticulously documented account Faith Hillis adds another dimension to this debate as she argues that, although absorbed by radical ideology, the life experienced in Russian colonies abroad affected the way in which Russian radicals and revolutionaries understood these ideas and thus how they behaved when in power....Hillis's book...emphasizes once again the primacy of ideas for the Russian radicals and recreates the neighborhoods and complex interactions that gave currency to these ideas both in Russia and beyond. * Catherine Andreyev, Journal of Modern History *This is a compelling and rich study that has many interesting sides and uses for the historian. Perhaps its greatest strength is in how it reconstructs the experience of being revolutionary in Europe, and the influence of utopians on pivotal moments in European and Russian history. * George Gilbert, University of Southampton, UK, European History Quarterly *Impressive in its scope, Utopia's Discontents provides a reinterpretation of the political genealogies of the Russian Revolution through a study of its rich and contentious émigré history....This book offers not only a richly detailed analysis of émigrés' efforts to reinvent society but also an interpretation of Russian radical thought as rooted in transnational spaces.... Hillis not only weaves the life stories of the Russian Revolution's celebrities into a dense web of encounters and exchanges but illuminates the groups often marginalized from these big histories. The narrative steps deftly from Poles and Ukrainians, to women, and to Jews, the focus on the latter group offering particularly exciting new perspectives on the revolutionary emigration....The website companion to the book... is an invaluable resource for historians in the field working with rare books and periodicals and a generous contribution to scholarship. * Lara Green, Revolutionary Russia *Engrossing.... Hillis's flair for narrative, small and large, gives Utopia's Discontents its depth and breadth. We learn about Russian women students who wore large glasses and short haircuts to signify their break with traditional gender norms, about Mensheviks and Bolsheviks brawling in Genevan bars, and about one émigré Populist leader's successful career as an artisanal kefir maker. Behind the dozens of characters that we meet is an enormous number of archival documents and a conviction that the milieu is the true protagonist of history. * Ania Aizman, Los Angeles Review of Books *Marvelous....the first major treatment of the émigré circles that dotted central and western Europe through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth.... Hillis offers a convincing portrait of these colonies functioning as...loci of intense engagement where groups of Russian emigres...rubbed shoulders, shouted at one another, and exchanged ideas with one another to produce new forms of said politics with drastic importance for world history.... It is clearly and elegantly written and shows a masterful command of the source material. It shines light on as a creative space capable of generating vast ideas....Hillis offers a new form of spatial history, a republic of cafes, street corners, bedrooms, and railroad cars where Russia was reimagined and the world transformed. Utopia's Discontents belongs on every bookshelf, and Hillis deserves every praise for writing it. * Joshua Meyers, In Geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies *The waves of Russian political, literary, and artistic émigrés who relocated to Europe have fascinated Western historians....Faith Hillis has her own unique perspective on post-Napoleonic Europe's Russian colonies....Her novel angle attempts to illustrate how the exiles living in poor, crowded conditions contributed to the particularities of Bolshevik politics and party culture....Hillis...is fair minded and balanced, cautious and moderate in her judgments, and she tells her story with detail and fluency. * Ronald Grigor Suny, American Historical Review *Hillis has written a ground-breaking study of Russian history from the perspective of émigrés and their movements against both czarist rule and, after the 1917 Revolution, the Bolsheviks themselves. Hillis notes anti-czarist movements began well before the revolutions of 1848 and reconstituted themselves after the failed Paris Commune of 1871....Hillis is to be applauded for the very successful application of her unique approach to considering Russian history. * Choice *When we describe the October Revolution as a 'world-historical event', this is usually understood to refer to the global consequences of the rise of the first Marxist state. Faith Hillis, in a brilliant move, has turned this sequence of events on its head. Utopia's Discontents shows how people, places and events situated far beyond the borders of Russia shaped the Revolution. The October Revolution, she shows, was world-historical at its root....Utopia's Discontents narrates the history of these utopian communities in fascinating, intimate detail....An excellent example of history that steps beyond disciplinary divisions and national boundaries. * Kevin M.F. Platt, Times Literary Supplement *Utopia's Discontents literally puts the history of the Russian Revolution—and all that came with it—on the map. By moving our point of reference to the émigré and exile peripheries at the core of twentieth-century history, this fascinating study of the 'Russian colonies' in Europe offers an inspiringly original take on the history of 'post-colonialism.' With uncommon narrative ease and rigorous attention to detail, Hillis does to the reigning historiography of the revolutionary movements what her protagonists did to the liberal order of the late nineteenth century. The history of ideas just got a good deal richer. * Holly Case, author of Age of Questions *Vividly narrated and brimming with insight, Utopia's Discontents brings to life the storied 'Russian colonies' of western Europe's major cities, where revolutions were plotted and new countries imagined. Faith Hillis brilliantly recreates the dense neighborhoods, intimate, often fraught social relationships, and high-pitched theoretical arguments that characterized life in the Russian colonies. Utopia's Discontents is a multi-layered study, at once richly local in focus and broad in scope. It is a truly exciting book. * Tony Michels, author of A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York *This ground-breaking book rethinks the history of Russia's revolutionaries through their lives in exile communities. Place mattered in their story: for inspiration, for encounters, for everyday radical practices. The book is a rich history of ideas—freedom, equality, community, and justice, and socialism—but as everyday practices rather than dreamy abstractions. Not least, this is magisterial research, written in an accessible and compelling manner. * Mark Steinberg, author of The Russian Revolution, 1905-21 *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Abbreviations Explanatory Note Introduction: From the Café Landolt Part I: Making Utopia Concrete Chapter 1: The Other Communards Chapter 2: Living the Revolution Chapter 3: Jewish Workers Meet the Russian Revolution Part II: Europe's Russian Moment Chapter 4: Entangled Emancipations Chapter 5: Émigré Dystopias Part III: Revolutionary Repercussions Chapter 6: "The Party of Extreme Opposition" Chapter 7: Ou-topos? Chapter 8: Revolution from Abroad Epilogue: Émigré Clans Notes Select Bibliography Index
£26.59
Oxford University Press Inc The World Come of Age
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£16.99
Oxford University Press 1917
Book Synopsis1917 was a year of calamitous events, and one of pivotal importance in the development of the First World War. In 1917: War, Peace, and Revolution, leading historian of World War One, David Stevenson, examines this crucial year in context and illuminates the century that followed. He shows how in this one year the war was transformed, but also what drove the conflict onwards and how it continued to escalate.Two developments in particular--the Russian Revolution and American intervention--had worldwide repercussions. Offering a close examination of the key decisions, Stevenson considers Germany''s campaign of ''unrestricted'' submarine warfare, America''s declaration of war in response, and Britain''s frustration of German strategy by adopting the convoy system, as well as why (paradoxically) the military and political stalemate in Europe persisted. Focusing on the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, on the disastrous spring offensive that plunged the French army into mutiny, on the summer Trade Review1917 is a triumph by a masterly historian, and one of the most important books to have been published during the centenary years of the First World War. * Gary Sheffield, BBC History Magazine *1917 will be of great interest to those readers who wish to better understand the broader implications of strategic and diplomatic decisions during the penultimate year of the conflict. It is in that field that Stevenson is an unrivalled master and his comprehensively researched book on 1917 will be welcomed by many. * Robert Gerwarth, Literary Review *Masterful ... this is a fascinating study of one of the most tumultuous years of the 20th century. * All About History *A welcome addition to the literature that challenges the all-too-safe and pernicious stereotypes of the history of the First World War that unfortunately still dominate popular culture. * Peter Morgan, Military History Magazine *1917 is a sound, learned work of breadth and insight, a study of the year 1917 as a microcosm of the war itself. * Wm. Roger Louis, Wall Street Journal *Stevenson's comprehensively researched and perceptively reasoned analysis stands apart from similar histories by showing that the conflict's outcome was determined not through blind impersonal forces but through deliberate will. * Publishers Weekly, Starred Review *1917: War, Peace, and Revolution represents a thoughtful synthesis of relevant secondary literature and published primary and archival sources. Its narrative is enriched by an invaluable bibliography, maps and photographs spread throughout the text, and helpful lists of abbreviations and principal personalities. It is a seminal work that will engage and inform students, scholars, and general readers alike. * Gregory J. Dehler, Michigan War Studies Review *David Stevenson's book is a cool and original account of the heat of war in 1917. It surpasses previous studies in terms of its global range and its archival depth. Here is a history of decision-making by the sleepwalkers who kept on their murky path into war three years after its outbreak, and of those few - including Lenin - who found a way out of the slaughterhouse. Stevenson's is history as tragedy, with hubris bringing down those who thought they could master the destructive forces of the Great War. * Jay Winter, Yale University *The European nations had dug themselves by 1917 into a war trap seemingly without exit - this is the starting point of David Stevenson's new book. The events of 1917, war, peace, and revolution, the struggle to get out of the war, get here a thorough reassessment. The book is an example for the combination of competent analysis with a gripping narrative and clear judgement. * Holger Afflerbach, University of Leeds *Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgements List of Principal Personalities Introduction I. Atlantic Prologue 1: Unleashing the U-Boats 2: Enter America 3: Britain Adopts Convoys II. Continental Impasse 4: Tsar Nicholas Abdicates 5: France Attacks 6: The Kerensky Offensive 7: The Road to Passchendaele 8: Collapse at Caporetto 9: Peace Moves and their Rejection III. Global Repercussions 10: The Spread of Intervention: Greece, Brazil, Siam, China 11: Responsible Government for India 12: A Jewish National Home IV. Conclusion Towards 1918: Lenin's Revolution, the Ludendorff Offensives, and Wilson's Fourteen Points Notes Bibliography Index
£15.29
Penguin Books Ltd Sparks
Book SynopsisA FINANCIAL TIMES, ECONOMIST, NEW YORKER AND NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023''An indelible feat of reporting and an urgent read ... It''s a privilege to read books like these'' Te-Ping Chen, author of Land of Big Numbers''A powerful reminder of the ways in which China''s future depends on who controls the past'' Peter HesslerA documentary filmmaker who spent years uncovering a Mao-era death camp; an independent journalist who gave voice to the millions who suffered through Covid; a magazine publisher who dodges the secret police: these are some of the people who make up Sparks: China''s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future, a vital account of how some of China''s most important writers, filmmakers, and artists have overcome crackdowns and censorship to challenge the Chinese Communist Party on its most sacred ground - its monopoly on history.In traditional China, dynasties rewrote history to justify their rule by proving that their predecessors were unworthy of holding power. Marxism gave this a modern gloss, describing history as an unstoppable force heading toward Communism''s triumph. The Chinese Communist Party builds on these ideas to whitewash its misdeeds and justify its rule.But in recent years, critical thinkers from across the land have begun to challenge this state-led disremembering. Using digital technologies to bypass China''s legendary surveillance state, their samizdat journals, guerilla media posts, and underground films document a pattern of disasters: from past famines and purges to the ethnic clashes and virus outbreaks of the present.Based on years of research in Xi Jinping''s China, Sparks challenges stereotypes of a China where the state has quashed all free thought, revealing instead a country engaged in one of humanity''s great struggles of memory against forgetting - a battle that will shape the China that emerges in the mid-21st century.Trade ReviewIan Johnson is one of the most experienced and thoughtful Western journalists writing about China. Now he has turned his attention to one of the most important battles in contemporary China: the struggle to control history ... Moving and full of human character and detail. It's a compelling read, beautifully written, and the product of deep research carried out in China over many years ... an exemplary tribute. -- Rana Mitter * Literary Review *Sparks is a work of scholarship, investigative journalism of a kind that rarely happens in the age of slashed budgets, with eyewitness accounts of brutality that will chill your blood ... Johnson’s stories bring these numbers, and this history, chillingly alive. -- Christina Patterson * Sunday Times *A skilful exploration… Johnson’s skill lies in demonstrating the philosophical links between China’s geography and its political and cultural landscape ... It is deeply satisfying to read a book about China that could only have been written after decades of serious engagement with the country. -- Amy Hawkins * The Guardian *A striking account ... This immersive survey combines interviews, firsthand reportage, and historical research to paint a moving group portrait of China’s political dissidents. * Publishers Weekly *Mr Johnson’s ability to evade controls and gain the trust of his subjects is evident in his compellingly written work. The result is a rare insight into the extraordinary risks that some Chinese take to illuminate the darkest corners of communism. -- James Miles * The Economist *An indelible feat of reporting and an urgent read, Sparks is alive with the voices of the countless Chinese who fiercely, improbably, refuse to let their histories be forgotten. It's a privilege to read books like these. -- Te-Ping Chen, author of Land of Big NumbersA revelation: this historian from overseas spent years penetrating the world of underground Chinese historians, becoming in his own right a recorder of pioneers such as Hu Jie, Ai Xiaoming, and Jiang Xue, who use text and video to record China's lost history. -- Liao Yiwu, author of The Corpse Walker, God is Red and For a Song and a Hundred SongsThis compelling and highly enjoyable book will greatly enhance the general reader's understanding of the subtle counter-currents of resistance at work in Chinese society below the smooth surface of control and compliance. -- Sebastian Veg, author of Minjian: The Rise of China's Grassroots IntellectualsA powerful narrative of how the human spirit has survived the cruel repression of Maoist totalitarianism and is still doing the same against Xi Jinping's determined efforts to impose a new form of digital totalitarianism ... A must read for anyone interested in the Chinese and China. -- Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African StudiesIan Johnson has conducted some of the most important grassroots research of any foreign journalist in China. With Sparks, he turns his attention to history - not the sanctioned, censored, and selective history promoted by the Communist Party, but the independent histories that are being written and filmed by brave individuals across the country. This book is a powerful reminder of the ways in which China's future depends on who controls the past. -- Peter Hessler
£21.25
Pennsylvania State University Press Luxury After the Terror
Book SynopsisExplores the production, circulation, and survival of French luxury after the death of Louis XVI by focusing on makers of decorative art objects who had strong ties to the monarchy and how they navigated the French Revolution. Trade Review“In Luxury After the Terror, Moon demonstrates the fascinating and subtle ways in which the decorative arts were shaped by the contradictory politics of the French Revolution. She measures this influence less in terms of iconography and the new emblems such as Phrygian bonnets and tricolour cockades that came to adorn many surfaces; rather, she reflects on the expressive limits and materiality of different genres of cultural production, from wallpaper and assignat banknotes (including a remarkable prototype stitched on silk), to lime-wood carving and hard-paste porcelain. Her analysis balances a meticulous attention to the physical properties and aesthetics of objects from across the 1790s with a refreshing willingness to speculate about how they articulated collective fantasies and anxieties.”—Tom Stammers Apollo Magazine“The robust history of artisans provides new vantage points from which to understand the French Revolution. Moon encourages her readers to adopt a critical lens on ‘survival’: not only of artisans in a changing economy, but also of physical objects in a new world of collecting and museums.”—Delanie J. Linden Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide“Esthetically pleasing, meticulously researched, and engagingly written, the range of topics Moon explores is impressive and sometimes daunting. . . . Challenging traditional scholarship, Moon introduces new perspectives on this fascinating period of French and European history.”—Felicia B. Sturzer New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century“Luxury After the Terror brings a criticality, a poetics, and a politics to this material that is truly exciting to see. Offering a vital new reading of the place of the decorative arts in the wake of revolution and reorienting our understanding of the period toward a range of captivating and unfamiliar objects, this meticulously researched and brilliantly argued book is an exhilarating rethinking of the field.”—Richard Taws,author of The Politics of the Provisional: Art and Ephemera in Revolutionary France
£74.76
Yale University Press 1688
Book SynopsisBased on new archival information, this book upends two hundred years of scholarship on England’s Glorious Revolution to claim that it—not the French Revolution—was the first truly modern revolutionTrade Review"Mr. Pincus’s cogently argued account of what really happened during England’s revolution destroys many comforting notions that have prevailed for more than 200 years. . . . It leaves the reader with something much more exciting: a new understanding of the origins of the modern, liberal state."—Economist"Pincus’s marvellously learned book is the product of years of industrious archival labour."—Jonathan Clark, Times Literary Supplement "A masterful reassessment of the received wisdom of what we understand of modern British history and the concept of revolution. This is a well-researched, well-written and important book."—British Heritage"This is an important book and deserves to be widely read . . . What stands out in Pincus’s work is his comprehensive use of manuscript sources and his determination to view events of 1688 afresh, these are the hallmarks of a true scholar . . . No historian of the Glorious Revolution – or the regime it established – will be able to overlook this remarkable work."—William Gibson, Archives"An engaging read . . . this book will unquestionably become a major talking-point among all interested in Britain’s last revolution."— Ted Vallance, BBC History Magazine"In this brilliant and provocative book, Steve Pincus creates a welcome stir that will enliven the study of the later 17th century . . . The result is a bracing, combative, highly stimulating argument, written in vivid and lively prose . . . A book that will be difficult for any student of the 17th century or of the revolutions to ignore."—Mark Knights, Reviews in History"The result is a major contribution to our understanding of the Revolution of 1688…It is the great strength of this book that it addresses large and intractable issues with boldness, verve, and argumentative charity."—Philip Connell, Notes and Queries"Pincus’s argument is a fascinating one, his study packed full of detail but never confusing or inaccessible."—Lesley McDowell, The Herald (Glasgow)"The sheer size of this impressively holistic study makes it hard to digest at one sitting. 1688 is a book to revisit and reflect upon, for there is so much to ponder here."—John Gibney, Journal of Ecclesiastical HistoryBronze Medal winner for the 2010 Independent Publishers Book Awards in the History CategoryWinner of the 2010 Gustav Ranis International Book Prize, given by the MacMillan CenterHonorable Mention in the Non-Fiction category of the 2009 New England Book Festival sponsored by the Larimar St. Croix Writers Colony, The Hollywood Creative Directory; eDivvy, Shopanista and Westside WebsitesA finalist in the category of Nonfiction for the 2010 Connecticut Book Award, given by the Connecticut Center for the BookWinner of the 2010 Morris D. Forkosch Prize given by the American Historical Association"Utterly extraordinary."—Don Herzog, University of Michigan"We all know that the year 1688 is a milestone in England's history; now, thanks to Steve Pincus, the book 1688 will be a milestone in its historiography. Pincus transforms what once seemed a peaceful compromise among agreeable aristocrats into a fractious and all-encompassing crisis, the ‘first modern revolution.’ Provocative, erudite, and accessible, 1688 is a must read for anyone interested in seventeenth-century Europe and its possessions."—Cynthia Herrup, University of Southern California"In this remarkable work of scholarship, vast in scope and profound in its implications, Pincus challenges Macaulay and the orthodox view that the Glorious Revolution was moderate, peaceful, and conservative, and reveals a violent transformational event that revolutionized England's state, church, and political economy, and introduced political modernity."—Bernard Bailyn, Harvard University"A radical interpretation of a radical revolution. Steve Pincus's brilliantly researched account of the extraordinary events of the 1680s and 1690s mounts an insuperable challenge to the comfortable view that the Glorious Revolution was another instance of British consensus politics, pragmatism, and common sense. 1688 recaptures the revolutionary nature of the Glorious Revolution and its far-reaching and interconnected conflicts over foreign policy, political economy, religion, and the nature of the modern state."—John Brewer, California Institute of Technology"A magnificent, fully documented, very well written study of how the first thorough-going modern revolution was achieved with effort and against substantial obstacles over several years. It was bloody and popular, not merely a palace coup achieved with little loss of life, as is commonly held. Taking a broader chronological view and considering more aspects of society than previous historians, Pincus convincingly shows how England had become a commercial society by the 1680s, and the race was on to harness new wealth—a race between the absolutist modernizing vision of James II and the more tolerant and liberty-minded vision of his opponents. What emerged was the first modern state, with independent financial institutions and a strong sense of national and civil, as opposed to confessional, interest. The triumph of William III and his supporters was a conscious re-ordering of the place of the three kingdoms on the European and world stage. Pincus's commitment to vigorous argument (in which he overturns many received views; his definition of revolution itself is bracingly refreshing) makes this book exciting reading, and will raise fascinated interest in the late 17th-century for many years to come. For anyone interested in modern liberal society, its origins, and why it is worth defending, this book is indispensable."—Nigel Smith, Princeton University
£23.75
Yale University Press Civil Wars
Book Synopsis
£12.99
Yale University Press Ranquil Rural Rebellion Political Violence and
Book SynopsisThe first major history of Chile’s most significant peasant rebellion and the violent repression that followedTrade ReviewWinner of the Whitaker Book Prize from the Mid-Atlantic Council on Latin American Studies (MACLAS)“This deeply researched narrative unfolds like a historical novel, capturing the protagonists in the long history of conflict over land, labor conditions, and national government policies that provoked the Ranquil rebellion and massacre, as well as its ‘place’ in present-day Chilean politics and historical memory.”—Brian Loveman, author of No Higher Law: American Foreign Policy and the Western Hemisphere since 1776“In this meticulously researched, finely crafted, and cogently argued work, Klubock challenges Chile’s long-standing image as a paradigm of social peace and political concord in Latin America. This is a mandatory read for anyone interested in contemporary Chilean history.”—Julio Pinto, Universidad de Santiago de Chile
£38.00
Thames & Hudson Ltd Revolutions
Book SynopsisAn essential primer on twenty-four of the most significant revolutions from the 17th century to the present day, narrated by leading historians from around the world.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Peter Furtado The English Revolution 1642–89: Simon Jenkins The American Revolution 1776–88: Ray Raphael The French Revolution 1789–99: Sophie Wahnich The Haitian Revolution 1791–1804: Bayyinah Bello The Year of Revolutions 1848: Axel Körner Japan: The Meiji Restoration 1867: Shin Kawashima The Young Turk Revolution 1908: Mehmed Sükrü Hanioglu The Mexican Revolution 1910–17: Javier Garciadiego The Irish Revolution 1913–23: Diarmaid Ferriter Russia: The Bolshevik Revolution 1917: Dina Khapaeva The Indian Revolution 1919–47: Mihir Bose The Vietnamese Revolution 1945: Stein Tønnesson China’s Communist Revolution 1949–76: Mobo Gao The Cuban Revolution 1959–2000: Luis Martinez Fernandez The Student Revolution 1968: Stephen Barnes Portugal: The Carnation Revolution 1974: Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge Revolution 1975–79: Sorpong Peou The Iranian Revolution 1979: Homa Katouzian Nicaragua: The Sandinista Revolution 1979–1990: Mateo Jarquin Poland: The Solidarity Revolution 1981–89: Anita Prazmowska Eastern Europe 1989: Vladimir Tismaneanu and Andres Garcia South Africa: The End of Apartheid 1990–1994: Thula Simpson Ukraine: The Orange Revolution 2004: Yaroslav Hrytsak Egypt: The Arab Spring 2011: Yasser Thabet
£11.69
Gill A Pocket History of the 1916 Rising
Book SynopsisThe Easter Rising was arguably the most important event in Irish history. It was an armed insurrection that occurred mainly in Dublin during Easter Week, 1916, mounted by Irish republicans intent on ending British rule in Ireland and establishing an independent Irish Republic. While not immediately successful, its consequences changed the course of Irish history forever.This book explains what happened in the years before and after the Rising, as well as providing an exciting day-by-day account of the events themselves, and biographies of the leading figures.
£6.99
Orion Publishing Co Cromwell Our Chief Of Men
Book SynopsisThe bestselling historian''s biography of a decisive figure in England''s history.No Englishman has made more impact on the history of his nation than Oliver Cromwell; few have been so persistently maligned in the folklore of history. The central purpose of Antonia Fraser''s book is the recreation of his life and character, freed from the distortions of myth and Royalist propaganda.Cromwell was a man of contradictions and surprising charm. This decisive and ruthless commander was also a country gentleman and a passionate connoisseur of music. Of Cromwell''s fitness for high office, this fascinating biography leaves no doubt. Under his rule English prestige abroad rose to a level unequalled since Elizabeth I, yet his campaign in Ireland has cast a shadow over his reputation.Antonia Fraser displays great insight into this complex man and reveals a totally unexpected Cromwell, far removed from the received stereotype.
£15.29
Taylor & Francis Inc The United States Honduras And The Crisis In
Book SynopsisPrior to the 1980s Honduras was an obscure backwater, of little public or policy concern in the United States. With the advent of the Reagan administration, however, Hondurans found themselves at the center of the US-Central American imbroglio, a launching pad for the administration''s contra war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and for counterinsurgency operations against guerrillas in El Salvador. Placing events in the context of Honduran history, the authors provide penetrating insights into the causes of revolution in Central America and the sources of stability that enabled Honduras to escape the civil strife that consumed its neighbors. At the same time, the work offers a fascinating account of Honduran domestic politics and of the personalities, motives, and maneuvers of policymakers on both sides of the U.S.-Honduras relationshiptoo often a tale of intrigue, violence, and corruption.Table of ContentsPreface -- Introduction -- The Land of the Midnight Coup -- The Strategy of Conflict -- The Backlash -- The United States and Honduras: From Crisis to Crisis -- A Journey into the Depths: Economic Crisis and Social Decay -- The United States, Honduras, and the End of the Contra War -- The Invisible Country -- How Honduras Escaped Revolutionary Violence
£47.49
Taylor & Francis Inc Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements
Book SynopsisWith crucial insights and indispensable information concerning modern-day political upheavals, Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements provides a representative cross section of the most significant revolutions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This Fifth Edition is revised and updated with a new chapter on the Arab Revolution from its beginning in December 2010 to the present. In this widely used text, students can trace the historical development of eleven revolutions using a five-factor analytical framework. Author James DeFronzo clearly explains all relevant concepts and events, the roles of key leaders, and the interrelation of each revolutionary movement with international economic and political developments and conflicts, including World Wars I and II, the Cold War, and the War on Terror. Student resources include multiple orienting maps, summary and analysis sections, suggested readings, chronologies, and documentary resources.
£44.09
Pathfinder Press The Spanish Revolution 193139
Book Synopsis
£999.99
Cambridge University Press 1989
Book SynopsisThe collapse of the Berlin Wall has come to represent the entry of an isolated region onto the global stage. On the contrary, this study argues that communist states had in fact long been shapers of an interconnecting world, with ''1989'' instead marking a choice by local elites about the form that globalisation should take. Published to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of the 1989 revolutions, this work draws on material from local archives to international institutions to explore the place of Eastern Europe in the emergence, since the 1970s, of a new world order that combined neoliberal economics and liberal democracy with increasingly bordered civilisational, racial and religious identities. An original and wide-ranging history, it explores the importance of the region''s links to the West, East Asia, Africa, and Latin America in this global transformation, reclaiming the era''s other visions such as socialist democracy or authoritarian modernisation which had been lost in trTrade Review'This is a provocative volume that challenges the liberal Western account of the negotiated transition from Communism in 1989 by stressing the agency of East European reformers and intellectuals. It recontextualises the story as part of the global deradicalisation of socialism and interprets the region as an example of 'in-betweenness', at once part and opposite of the West.' Konrad H. Jarausch, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill'A remarkable scholarly achievement which compels us to rethink the Eastern Europe transition of 1989 in a global context, dispensing with a Western triumphalist view of the end of the Cold War. Through painstaking detail and incisive analysis, this shows us the ways in which East Europeans continue to navigate their own political paths.' Mary Neuburger, University of Texas, Austin'Laying waste to all lingering clichés of the walled hermit kingdoms of socialist-era Eastern Europe, the authors restore the history of Cold War Eastern Europe to the world, depicting it as a region entangled in global supply chains and transnational lines of political influence long before 1989. The authors refuse simplistic narratives of convergence and help explain the contemporary challenges of nativist nationalism.' Quinn Slobodian, Wellesley College, Massachusetts'This excellent book contributes to the recent trend in bringing together Eastern European and global history, and shows the fruitfulness of collective book writing.' Philipp Ther, Universität Wien'1989: A Global History of Eastern Europe offers a nuanced and sobering account of the global context of the fall of the Eastern Bloc and its role in the construction of post-Cold War Europe … makes a unique and necessary contribution not just to the historiography of the revolutions of 1989, but also to our understanding of the rightward drift in contemporary Eastern Europe.' Nick Ostrum, EuropeNow'A must-read for every historian who deals with Eastern Europe after 1945 and especially after 1968. It shows the importance of history for explaining contemporary situations and inspires historians to draw out their research up to the present and to intervene in the public sphere.' Luboš Studený, Prague Economic and Social History Papers'Using a global approach, this extraordinary book, which was written by four authors, who all teach history at the University of Exeter as specialists of different regions (James Mark/Central Europe, Bogdan C. Iacob/Eastern Europe, Tobias Rupprecht/Latin America, and Ljubica Spaskovska/former Yugoslavia), critiques and revises a number of popular aspects of this Eurocentric myth of 1989 … an important contribution to our understanding of today's world.' Árpád von Klimo, H-Diplo'This ambitious, rich, and necessary book is the first comprehensive scholarly synthesis of the global reach of Eastern Europe from late socialism in the 1970s to the postsocialist transition after 1989 through the illiberal turn following 2008. Cowritten by four specialists on Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union, 1989: A Global History of Eastern Europe is a model for collaborative work melding regional expertise in a genuinely comparative, transnational analysis.' Theodora Dragostinova, The American Historical Review'… rich, thought-provoking account of 1989. Without doubt, the monograph will spark academic discussions and will open new avenues for research on this hotly debated period. It thus will be on the recommended list for any scholar interested in the history of the region, its global context, and its ongoing reverberations.' Ruzha Smilova, Southeastern Europe'… 1989 is probably the best transregional history of 1989 one can read today …' Judit Bodnár, Slavic ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgements; Introduction; 0.1 Going global; 0.2 The long transition and the making of transitional elites in global perspective; 0.3 A global history of the other '1989s'; 0.4 The end of the '1989' era?; 1. Globalisation; 1.1 From socialist internationalism to capitalist globalisation; 1.2 Debt and ideological re-orientation; 1.3 The choice of 'neoliberal' globalisation; 1.4 Authoritarian transformations?; 1.5 Transformation from within; 1.6 Conclusion; 2. Democratisation; 2.1 Reforming elites; 2.2 Opposition from the local to the global and back; 2.3 Alternatives to '1989': authoritarianism and violence; 2.4 Disciplining transition and democratic peace; 3. Europeanisation; 3.1 The early Cold War: a divided Europe; 3.2 Helsinki – re-bordering Europe?; 3.3 An anti-colonial Europe: critiquing Helsinki; 3.4 A prehistory of Fortress Europe: civilisational bordering in late socialism; 3.5 Eastern Europe, a buffer against Islam?; 3.6 After 1989: 'Fortress Europe'?; 3.7 Conclusion; 4. Self-determination; 4.1 The rise of anti-colonial self-determination; 4.2 The Soviet withdrawal; 4.3 Peace or violence; 4.4 Reverberations of Eastern European self-determination; 4.5 Conclusion; 5. Reverberations; 5.1 1989 as a new global script; 5.2 Instrumentalising 1989: the West and new forms of political conditionality; 5.3 'Taming' the left; 5.4 Interventionism and the '1989' myth; 5.5 Eastern Europeans and the export of the revolutionary idea; 5.6 From Cuba to China: rejecting '1989'; 5.7 Conclusion; 6. A world without '1989'; 6.1 Towards the West? Ambiguous convergence; 6.2 Who is the true Europe? The turn to divergence; 6.3 Beyond the EU: post-socialist global trajectories; 6.4 Conclusion.
£76.50
Cambridge University Press The Cambridge Companion to Latin American
Book SynopsisThis innovative and comprehensive volume offers a new framework to analyze Latin American independence, bringing together the most current scholarship and situating it within the broader historiography. A much-needed addition in this field, the volume will interest scholars of Latin American Studies and the Age of Atlantic Revolutions.Trade Review'A truly essential companion, this book permeates the mutual isolation between Luso-Brazilian and Spanish-American historiography, reconnects the crisis of 1808 with the processes of the 18th century, and illuminates intellectual, political, military, commercial, and labor relations that intertwined local dynamics with global trends, actors of both genders and varied fields, and narratives of past and future.' Margarita Garrido, author of Reclamos y representaciones: variaciones sobre la poliìtica en el Nuevo Reino de Granada, 1770–1815'The Cambridge Companion to Latin American Independence is a wide-ranging and innovative set of essays written by excellent historians. These essays both synthesize the most recent scholarship on the period and launch incisive new questions on many topics.' Peter Francis Guardino, author of The Time of Liberty: Popular Political Culture in Oaxaca, 1750–1850'This is a refreshing and energizing companion to the study of Latin American independence. By challenging inherited approaches, raising new questions and making connections and comparisons across both time and space, its authors provide fresh perspectives on key questions and offer an indispensable point of departure for future debate on the origins, character and meaning of the transition from colonial rule. Highly recommended.' Anthony McFarlane, author of War and Independence in Spanish America'This timely volume offers new insights into the history of Latin American independence, a vigorous field of study that has recently experienced path-breaking innovations in perspectives and interpretations. The editors have pulled together a prominent group of international scholars who tread new historiographical grounds on different aspects of that multidimensional historical process.' Hilda Sabato, author of Republics of the New World: The Revolutionary Political Experiment in Nineteenth-Century Latin AmericaTable of ContentsIntroduction: Rethinking Latin American independence in the twenty-first century Marcela Echeverri and Cristina Soriano; 1. On the origins of Latin American independence: A reappraisal of colonial crisis, popular politics and Atlantic revolution in the eighteenth century Sinclair Thomson; 2. Constitutionalism and representation in Ibero-America during the independence processes Marcela Ternavasio; 3. Foreign interaction and the independence of Latin America: Local dynamics, Atlantic processes Ernesto Bassi and Fabrício Prado; 4. Public opinion and militarization during the wars of independence Alejandro M Rabinovich and Cristina Soriano; 5. Natural histories of remembrance and forgetting: Science and independence in the Spanish and Portuguese Americas Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra and Neil Safier; 6. Brothers in arms: Freemasonry in Latin American independence Karen Racine; 7. Beyond heroes and heroines: Gendering Latin American independence Sarah C Chambers; 8. Views on the Latin American independences from the Iberian Peninsula Álvaro Caso Bello and Gabriel Paquette; 9. Shades of unfreedom: Labor regimes in Latin America in the nineteenth century Marcela Echeverri and Roquinaldo Ferreira; 10. Early liberalism: Emancipation and its limits José M Portillo; Bibliography; Index.
£26.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Warships in the Baltic Campaign 191820
Book SynopsisA fascinating look at the British naval intervention in the Baltic in 191820, and at the British, Soviet and Baltic nationalist fleets that fought.Following the Russian Revolution of October 1917, the Baltic states became a battleground between Russian Reds and Whites, German troops and emerging Baltic independence forces. In November 1918, the British government decided to intervene, to protect British interests and to support the emerging Baltic states. This initial small force of cruisers and destroyers was eventually augmented by other British warships, including aircraft carriers, a monitor, as well as a handful of submarines and torpedo boats. Opposing them was the far more powerful Russian Baltic Fleet, now controlled by the Bolsheviks. The campaign that followed involved naval clashes between the two sides, the most spectacular of which was an attack on the Soviet naval base of Kronstadt in June 1919 by a force of small British torpedo boats. They torpedoed and sunk theTrade ReviewKonstam provides a concise account of the complex geo-political background to the campaign, before giving a compelling description of the main activities and actions in which the British warships were involved. -- Paul Brown * Journal of the Britannia Naval Research Association *This title contributes nicely to the overall picture and should be recommended to readers who are interested in exactly this (perhaps) slightly overlooked part of the First World War's regional consequences. -- Simon Papousek * Danish Military History Society *...a highly readable introduction which tells the story well and deftly highlights many of the important issues. Recommended. -- Andrew Livsey * The Naval Review *Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION BACKGROUND THE CAMPAIGN British intervention Waiting for the thaw Sparring in the Gulf Operation RK After Kronstadt THE SOVIET BALTIC FLEET The warships THE ALLIED FLEET The warships FURTHER READING BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX
£10.79
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The American Revolution
Book SynopsisUpdated and revised from the popular 2002 edition, with full-colour maps and new images throughout, this is a concise study of the American Revolutionary War. The American Revolution, or the American War of Independence, has been characterized politically as a united political uprising of the American colonies and militarily as a guerrilla campaign of colonists against the inflexible British military establishment. In this book, Daniel Marston argues that this belief, though widespread, is a misconception. He contends that the American Revolution, in reality, created deep political divisions in the population of the Thirteen Colonies, while militarily pitting veterans of the Seven Years'' War against one another, in a conflict that combined guerrilla tactics and classic 18th-century campaign techniques on both sides. The peace treaty of 1783 that brought an end to the war marked the formal beginning of the United States of America as an independent politTable of ContentsIntroduction Background to War Warring Sides Outbreak The Fighting The World Around War How the War Ended Conclusion and Consequences Chronology Further Reading Index
£11.69
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC British Light Infantryman vs Patriot Rifleman
Book SynopsisFully illustrated, this book assesses the origins, equipment, and fighting styles of the irregular warfare specialists fighting on both sides during the American Revolutionary War.Amid North America''s often forested, broken, or rugged terrain, 18th-century armies came to rely on soldiers capable of fighting individually or in small groups. During the American Revolutionary War, rifle-armed companies were incorporated into the newly created Continental Army, while Patriot militiamen and partisans also made use of rifled weapons. Facing them were the British Army''s light infantrymen; among the most experienced regular soldiers fighting for the Crown, they were joined by Loyalist units able to operate in dispersed formations and German hired troops skilled in open-order fighting, including the rifle-armed Jäger.The strengths and limitations of both sides'' open-order specialists are evaluated in this book, with particular focus upon three revealinTrade ReviewThis is a well-written text that highlights an important aspect of a peculiar 18th Century conflict. -- Neil Smith * Wargames Illustrated *Table of ContentsIntroduction The Opposing Sides Harlem Heights, September 16, 1776 Freeman's Farm, September 19, 1777 Hanging Rock, August 6, 1780 Analysis Aftermath Bibliography Index
£14.39
Pen & Sword Books Ltd Russian Civil War: Red Terror, White Terror,
Book SynopsisThe Russian Revolution is remembered as the catalyst for the bloody conflict between the Reds and the Whites as each side tried to gain control of the country. But it was far from being so simple. The conflict did not only involve the Russians. The author contemplates whether the Russians could have capitulated to Germany and whether in fact Russia was ever in any condition to carry on the fight even before the revolution began, examining whether a collapse of the war in the east would lead to Allied defeat in the west. The effect of the revolution and the civil war went far beyond the borders of the enormous Russian Empire and far beyond the end of the Great War and the civil war, not least of all whom the millions of subject peoples and races supported: the Reds, the Whites, the Germans, or none. The conflict in Russia between 1917 and 1922 is a fascinating and complex period of history but the brutally colourful cast of characters-Tsar Nicholas II, Brusilov, Kerensky, Lenin, Trotsy, Stalin and Churchill-would make a violent impact on the world stage for a century to come.
£11.69
Pen & Sword Books Ltd Tanks on the Streets?: The Battle of George
Book SynopsisAt 12.08pm on Friday 31 January 1919, Margaret Buchanan drives her tram into George Square in Glasgow's city centre. She slows down to avoid the youths and men holding their arms up to stop her; some even jump onto the front of her tram. Swirling around her tram is a sea of heavy-coated men who have been on strike since Monday, demanding a reduction to a forty-hour working week. Crucially, the tram workers have not joined the strike; they are being abused as 'scabs'. Constables and officers of Glasgow's police force use their hands to try to part the crowd to allow the tram to proceed, but their efforts fail and batons are drawn. Within minutes, the violence will have spread across and beyond the Square; men will have been injured; the Sheriff will have read the Riot Act; strike leaders will lie stunned and bleeding inside the City Chambers; policemen and protestors will lie beaten in the streets. The violence and destruction in the Square, the streets to the north and south, in Glasgow Green and even south of the River Clyde, involves thousands of men. The city authorities believe the situation is beyond the control of the outnumbered police; the Sheriff sends a message to the local army commander requesting assistance. For the first time in history, tanks will be despatched as 'military aid to the civil power'. They will be accompanied by 10,000 soldiers. At approximately 12.30pm on Friday 31 January 1919, a century of myth-making commences. Using thousands of pages of court papers, memoirs and news reports, this book is the first attempt to tell the story of what happened in day-by-day detail.
£21.25
Pan Macmillan The Book Collectors of Daraya: A Band of Syrian
Book Synopsis'The Book Collectors of Daraya celebrates the political and therapeutic power of the written word . . . defiant and cautiously optimistic' Financial Times'[An] incredible chronicle . . . The book tells the kind of story that often gets buried beneath images of violence' LitHub In 2012 the rebel suburb of Daraya in Damascus was brutally besieged by Syrian government forces. Four years of suffering ensued, punctuated by shelling, barrel bombs and chemical gas attacks. People’s homes were destroyed and their food supplies cut off; disease was rife. Yet in this man-made hell, forty young Syrian revolutionaries embarked on an extraordinary project, rescuing all the books they could find in the bombed-out ruins of their home town. They used them to create a secret library, in a safe place, deep underground. It became their school, their university, their refuge. It was a place to learn, to exchange ideas, to dream and to hope. Based on lengthy interviews with these young men, conducted over Skype by the award-winning French journalist Delphine Minoui, The Book Collectors of Daraya is a powerful testament to freedom, tolerance and the power of literature.Translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud.Trade ReviewThere is something seductive about the idea of knowledge as a bulwark against brutal force, and it’s an idea that immediately resonates with Minoui . . . She makes up for the lack of on-the-ground access with an abundance of attention and empathy. -- Mythili Rao * Guardian *The Book Collectors of Daraya celebrates the political and therapeutic power of the written word . . . defiant and cautiously optimistic -- Houman Barekat * Financial Times *[An] incredible chronicle . . . The book tells the kind of story that often gets buried beneath images of violence. -- Corinne Segal * LitHub *Just like prisons across the region, rebel strongholds are sometimes universities in exile; witnessing the unexpected joy of learning in such circumstances is both sobering and inspiring. -- Lisa Anderson * Foreign Affairs *A haunting portrait . . . Fluidly translated and emotionally powerful, this devastating account pays tribute to the "dream of a better world that never fully came true" * Publishers Weekly *This compassionate portrayal of an engaging group of rebels serves as a testament to both the resilience of the human spirit and to the power of story. Highly recommended for those interested in current events, Middle East history and politics, and personal accounts of war. * Library Journal *An extraordinary story . . . Heartbreaking, inspiring, and beautifully told * Kirkus Reviews *Readers will be moved by the plight of the people of Daraya, and inspired by their faith in the power of books to give information, release, and hope. * Booklist *The Book Collectors of Daraya is about hope and connection against unspeakable violence, deprivation, and tragedy. It is a meaningful addition to the literary subgenre that covers books and libraries. -- Martha Anne Toll * NPR *Precise yet passionate . . . The Book Collectors of Daraya is a phenomenal story of hope in the midst of complete devastation. -- Alice Cary * BookPage *The Book Collectors of Daraya hurt me like never before, because I hold this country I have never visited, my country, close to my heart . . . Readers discover how the magic of books kept the rebels motivated, hopeful, sane and, most importantly, alive . . . Honest and brutal, it opens your eyes to the nightmares of war but also to the glory of books and reading. -- Bader Saab * Patheos *This is an urgent and compelling account of great bravery and passion. Delphine Minoui has crafted a book that champions books and the individuals who risk everything to preserve them. -- Susan Orlean, author of The Library BookAbsolutely essential reading. With masterful storytelling, Delphine Minoui recounts the struggle and tenacity of the youth of Daraya who, in the shadow of a merciless war, rescue books from the rubble and bring to life a library unlike any other. Each page connects us to their strength and their spirit as well as to the power of words in a crumbling world. This book is an ode to resistance, to freedom, and to life. -- Négar Djavadi, author of DisorientalAfter reading this book, there can be no doubt. Not about the power of words versus the words of those in power. Not about the importance of literature in times of despair. And not about the strength of Delphine Minoui's pen, as she honors the act of resistance against the disaster of war. -- Atiq Rahimi, author of A Curse on DostoevskyI was so moved by this account of the young rebels of Daraya, Syria, who, in the midst of a four-year blockade by Assad’s forces (including having poison gas used against them), set up a library with books rescued from bombed and destroyed buildings, an underground (in both senses of the word) library that grew to more than 15,000 titles, ranging from Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People to Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, and everything in between. In this testimony to the power of reading, these lines stood out: ‘Books are their best way to escape the war, if only temporarily. A melody of words against the dirge of bombs.’ -- Nancy Pearl, author of Book Lust and George and Lizzie
£9.49
Vintage Publishing Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of
Book Synopsis*THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*Four Hundred Souls is an epoch-defining history of African America, the first to appear in a generation, told by ninety leading Black voices -- co-curated by Ibram X. Kendi, author of the million-copy bestseller How To Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on Fire.In chronological chapters, each by a different author and spanning five years, the book charts the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans to the present - a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles and stunning achievements.Contributors include some of today's leading writers, historians, journalists, lawyers, poets and activists. Together - through essays and short stories, personal vignettes and fiery polemics - they redefine America and the way its history can be told.'A vital addition to the curriculum on race in America... Compelling' Washington Post'A resounding history...that challenges the myths of America's past... Fresh and engaging' Colin Grant, GuardianTrade ReviewAn impressive and illuminating collection that rejects Blackness in America as a singular experience and instead illustrates the range of Black experiences and voices * Time, 21 Most Anticipated Books of 2021 *A polyphonic work that unites writers, historians, lawyers, poets and activists ... From Morgan Parker's poem Before Revolution to writer Bernice L McFadden's soaring exploration of Zora Neale Hurston's genre-defining writing, it's something quite incredible * Stylist *Highly readable and far more compelling than a mere historical digest would have been ... This collection teaches us that nothing about the latest crisis is new ... a vital addition to that curriculum on race in America and should serve as a gateway to the solo works of all the voices in Kendi and Blain's impressive choir * Washington Post *A provocative, stirring anthology . . . Four Hundred Souls weaves a tapestry of unspeakable suffering and unexpected transcendence * O: The Oprah Magazine, 20 of the Best Books of February 2021 to Fall in Love With *
£10.44
PublicAffairs,U.S. The Empire Must Die: Russia's Revolutionary
Book SynopsisThe Empire Must Die portrays the vivid drama of Russia's brief and exotic experiment with civil society before it was swept away by the despotism of the Communist Revolution. The window between two equally stifling autocracies - the imperial family and the communists - was open only briefly, in the last couple of years of the 19th century until the end of WWI, by which time the revolution was in full fury. From the last years of Tolstoy until the death of the Tsar and his family, however, Russia experimented with liberalism and cultural openness. In Europe, the Ballet Russe was the height of chic. Novelists and playwrights blossomed, political ideas were swapped in coffee houses and St Petersburg felt briefly like Vienna or Paris. The state, however couldn't tolerate such experimentation against the backdrop of a catastrophic war and a failing economy. The autocrats moved in and the liberals were overwhelmed. This story seems to have strangely prescient echoes of the present.
£28.50
Granta Books The Glutton
Book SynopsisOne man with an insatiable hunger: a novel of desire and destruction in Revolutionary France, based on a true story, from the Desmond Elliott Prize-winning author of The Manningtree Witches. Sister Perpetue is not to move. She is not to fall asleep. She is to sit, keeping guard over the patient's room. She has heard the stories of his hunger, which defy belief: that he has eaten all manner of creatures and objects. A child even, if the rumours are to be believed. But it is hard to believe that this slender, frail man is the one they once called The Great Tarare, The Glutton of Lyon. Before, he was just Tarare. Well-meaning and hopelessly curious, born into a world of brawling and sweet cider, to a bereaved mother and a life of slender means. The 18th Century is drawing to a close, unrest grips the heart of France and life in the village is soon shaken. When a sudden act of violence sees Tarare cast out and left for dead, his ferocious appetite is ignited, and it's not long before his extraordinary abilities to eat make him a marvel throughout the land.Trade ReviewA darkly exuberant novel about one man's insatiable hunger... -- What to read this autumn: 2023’s biggest new books * The Guardian *An embarrassment of riches. A sensory assault fit to slap any reader awake with its gorgeous glut of baroque prose and wise, poised lessons on life, pleasure, class, desire, and love -- Kiran Millwood HargraveThe Glutton contains some of the most striking writing I have read in a very long time. An audacious and humane study of desire, pain and tenderness; a remarkable book about a remarkable subject by a remarkable writer -- Keiran Goddard, author of HourglassAn extraordinary accomplishment, a truly horrible and truly glorious novel. I devoured it. AK Blakemore's intelligence is tempered by a profound and merciful human compassion, and the tragic making and breaking of Tarare is going to be with me for quite some time. Heartbreaking -- Annie GarthwaiteRelentless and shocking, bursting with life in all its thrilling vulgarity, The Glutton will dog your days. Blakemore's history is not to be tiptoed around. Her prose is unstoppable, full of bawdy viscera, singing of the cruelty and seduction of the past... It will have you squirming between sympathy and revulsion, pleasure and pain -- Alex HydeSet in revolutionary France, The Glutton...explores poverty, desire and social chaos in thrilling prose * Guardian *Excellent... Blakemore's writing is exceptional, saturated with the viscera of this life... The Glutton also offers beauty with practically every other sentence: not even a roadside thistle escapes a simile. Tarare doesn't know his letters, but Blakemore gives him the yearning inner life of a poet... In Tarare's final moments, both we and the Sister are invited to see not some othered creature of myth, but something of ourselves * Telegraph - 5/5 stars *Even in the midst of unpleasantness, The Glutton provides mischievous fun... A rich, human story - a raucous mess where excess is not sinful but defiant, a retaliation against the inequality of a country on the cusp of revolution * Literary Review *Through Tarare's thrilling travels we witness all the upheaval in a fierce and lyrical tale of desire * Monocle *Blakemore takes Tarare's life, recorded only in a medical paper, and puts the meat on the bones. But what meat it is. Blood drips from every page as she creates a banquet of gorgeously crafted, unexpected images. You'll find yourself turning them over in your mind for days... * Evening Standard *A full-throttle picaresque... Blakemore puts flesh on the bones of this quasi-mythical figure by showing his escape from a violent, impoverished childhood * Daily Mail *The Glutton is remarkable for its beautiful language, for its hallucinatory imagery, and for its ability to mingle these things with the world of 18th-century poor folk... The Glutton is certain to be one of the most remarkable novels of the year * Guardian *Tarare's story is a breathless picaresque, each new situation quickly revealed as frying pan or fire. His tragedy is to be too trusting, seeing his exploiters as friends. The entire society Blakemore presents is a cruel and grasping one, its resources too scarce to nourish kindness... The Glutton brings Tarare's world to life in all its stink and splendour * The Sunday Times *Blakemore's second novel is a tour de force of sustained, visceral brilliance. Although not for the squeamish, it ultimately rescues a real human being from the caricature that history made of him * Mail on Sunday *A. K. Blakemore is one such author who refuses to slim down her rich use of language and invites us, much like her gluttonous muse, to gorge... Blakemore's revolting bodies are an antidote to modernity's sanitisation. With absurdist humour she invites readers to revel in the muck * Big Issue *
£13.49
Cornerstone The Peterloo Massacre
Book Synopsis__________________________'The universal significance of this historic event becomes ever more relevant in our own turbulent times.' MIKE LEIGH, director of the award-winning film Peterloo__________________________The Peterloo Massacre is a revealing and compelling account of one of the darkest days in Britain's social history.On 16 August 1819, a strong force of yeomanry and regular cavalry charged into a crowd of more than 100,000 workers who had gathered on St Peter’s Field in Manchester for a meeting about Parliamentary reform.Many were killed. This violent, startling event became known as Peterloo, one of the darkest days in Britain’s social history.The Peterloo Massacre provides a revealing narrative account of the events leading up to Peterloo, starkly describes the actions of that fateful day, and examines its aftermath. It offers a new perspective on the political and military activities of the time, and shows how the very nature of society was powerfully influenced by irreversible technological change: a pattern that, two-hundred years later, still has relevance in understanding the forces shaping our world today.__________________________'One of our nation's defining moments.' STUART MACONIE'Vivid and rather brilliant.' THE TIMES'an absorbing analysis of one of the blackest days for civil liberties which this country has ever known. It is a story of heroes and villains, of suffering and carnage and of incompetence, betrayal and brutality, told with the skill of a master craftsman who makes history leap from the page fresh as the morning’s newspapers' EVENING CHRONICLE'There are many accounts of the Peterloo Massacre but none as thoroughly researched as this one. The characters . . . come alive in his easy to read style . . . there is much to be learned from Robert Reid’s description and analysis of the role and effects of technology, and I hope his book will be widely read. It should be in every school library and discussed by all those involved in the continuing search for civilised solutions to the social and political problems currently facing our people.' CAMDEN JOURNALTrade ReviewVivid and rather brilliant. * The Times *The Peterloo Massacre is an absorbing analysis of one of the blackest days for civil liberties which this country has ever known. It is a story of heroes and villains, of suffering and carnage and of incompetence, betrayal and brutality, told with the skill of a master craftsman who makes history leap from the page fresh as the morning’s newspapers . . . Mr Reid’s definitive account of Peterloo is splendidly written. * Evening Chronicle *There are many accounts of the Peterloo Massacre but none as thoroughly researched as this one. The characters . . . come alive in his easy to read style . . . there is much to be learned from Rober Reid’s description and analysis of the role and effects of technology, and I hope his book will be widely read. It should be in every school library and discussed by all those involved in the continuing search for civilised solutions to the social and political problems currently facing our people. * Camden Journal *[A] magnificent volume of dramatic history. * Manchester Evening News *From an awe-inspiring range of sources Dr Reid has constructed a narrative that reads like a political thriller in which numerous threads are drawn together in the bloody climax. Each character is fleshed out with his ambitions, abilities and achievements . . . [A] devastatingly comprehensive epic . . . The book will inform and invigorate anyone with an interest in history, drawing intriguing parallels with contemporary ideology. * Newbury Weekly News *
£10.79
Verso Books Soldiers of Revolution: The Franco-Prussian War
Book SynopsisThe Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 introduced new military technologies, transformed the organization of armies, and upset the continental balance of power, promulgating new regimented ideas of nationhood and conflict resolution more widely. However, the mass armies that became a new standard required mass mobilization and the arming of working people, who exercised a new power through both a German social democracy and popular insurgent French movements. As in the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Paris Commune of 1871 grew directly from the discontent among radicalized soldiers and civilians pressed into armed service on behalf of institutions they learned to mistrust. If this militarized class conflict, the brutality of the Commune's subsequent repression not only butchered the tens of thousands of Parisians but slaughtered an old utopian faith that appeals to reason and morality could resolve social tensions. War among nations became linked to revolution and revolution to armed struggle.Trade ReviewMark Lause's investigation of the link between mass conscription, war and revolution is timely. Many of the classic revolutions and vast movements of social reforms on which the 21st century Left can base its reflection involve soldiers and ex-soldiers: the Paris Commune of course, but also the Russian, German and Chinese revolutions, the rise of social states around 1945 in Britain, France and even the US (around the GI Bill). Mark Lause is well placed to conduct this investigation with his specialization on the US Civil War, the first emergence of Left movements and labor in the mid-nineteenth century, and the lively interactions between the US and European, notably French, Left at the time of Lincoln, Marx and Clemenceau. * John Barzman *This is military history at its broadest and best. Lause captures events and technologies of destruction to be sure but also the regimented labor of war, the soldier's experience of larger worlds and new comrades, the coming to know of politics as a life and death matter, and the invitation to interrogate national ideals. These transformations set the stage for the for both the Paris Commune and the brutality of its repression. -- David Roediger teaches history at the University of Kansas. He is the author most recently of The Sinking Middle ClassMark Lause's investigation of the link between mass conscription, war and revolution is timely. Many of the classic revolutions and vast movements of social reforms on which the 21st century Left can base its reflection involve soldiers and ex-soldiers: the Paris Commune of course, but also the Russian, German and Chinese revolutions, the rise of social states around 1945 in Britain, France and even the US (around the GI Bill). Mark Lause is well placed to conduct this investigation with his specialization on the US Civil War, the first emergence of Left movements and labor in the mid-nineteenth century, and the lively interactions between the US and European, notably French, Left at the time of Lincoln, Marx and Clemenceau. -- John Barzman, Université Le Havre NormandieIn July 1870 France declared war on the confederation of German states headed by Prussia, only to be forced to capitulate six months later, after a series of traumatic and humiliating military defeats; in the meantime, the French Empire had collapsed and was been replaced by a Republic. This first modern European conflict has long suffered from a relative lack of interest among historians. In this respect, Mark Lause's Soldiers of the Revolution is a welcome addition to this field or research. Mark Lause's book is not just another well-researched and well written narrative of the Franco-Prussian War and its most immediate consequence, the Paris Commune (and other provincial uprisings). It brings into sharp focus the consequences of modern war and the emergence of more centralized nation-states that came to supersede the romantic vision of a universal republic that had been so popular in 1848 and the 'Spring of Peoples'. Because it is a thought-provoking examination of the relationship between war and revolution, it also develops an interestingly new approach on the Paris Commune, by showing that revolution offers an alternative when state power effectively begins to dissolve. Conversely, it also demonstrates that nation-building does not necessarily go hand in hand with a republican form of government. Lause convincingly argues that a new world emerged from the events of 1870-71, and that the Paris Commune contributed to the internationalization of the anticapitalist movement. His book deserves to be read carefully by all those who take an interest in the dynamics that have shaped the society we are presently living in. -- Michel Cordillot, Professor emeritus Université Paris 8, editor of La Commune de Paris 1871, les acteurs, l’événement, les lieux (Paris, 2021)
£19.00
Verso Books The Captains Coup
Book SynopsisThe first English edition of legendary journalist Wilfred Burchett's eye-witness reporting on the bloodless Portuguese military coup and Carnation Revolution (1974-1975).
£22.50
Four Courts Press Ltd Fermanagh
Book Synopsis
£21.38
Resistance Books The POUM
£14.76
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Egypt under ElSisi
Book SynopsisMaged Mandour is an Egyptian political analyst who writes regularly for outlets such as Middle East Eye, openDemocracy, the Arab Digest, and the journal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has made a number of media appearances as a commentator on Egyptian affairs and is a graduate of the University of Cambridge, UK.Trade ReviewMaged Mandour's is a voice that is crucial to an understanding of contemporary Egypt. The acute economic analyses and political acumen he brings to all his work is the measure of a writer committed to rigorous, objective and robust journalism. For anyone even mildly interested in the country and its trajectory Egypt Under Sisi is a must-read. * Wlliam Law, Editor, Arab Digest *Mandour captured the essence of the past decade’s trajectory in Egypt. Maged carefully traces the re-emergence of Egypt’s military within a polarized social and political context. Painstaking, thoughtful, and vivid, Mandour’s voice not only bears witness but cuts through to the crux of Egypt's current dynamics. A highly recommended read for anyone looking to understand Egypt and grapple with its future. * Intissar Fakir, Senior Fellow and Director, Middle East Institute · *In this striking and beautifully written analysis of Egypt under Al-Sisi, Maged Mandour tears away the façade of military continuity, laying bare how, in the wake of Tahrir Square, deep restructuring and ideological transformation concentrated power in a dictatorship that is a radically new phenomenon – not only violently repressive but also structurally barricaded against democracy. It is a shocking, meticulously documented account of the complete militarization of the Egyptian state, which Mandour subtly reveals is also ruinously brittle, a flaw that could eventually shatter the whole edifice. * Roxane Farmanfarmaian, Dr, University of Cambridge, UK *Mandour demonstrates powerfully through this detailed anatomy of the regime of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi that it represents a radical break in modern Egyptian history, differing significantly from all the authoritarian regimes that preceded it since the army overthrew the monarchy in 1952. Mandour makes two special contributions. First, revealing the extent to which “the regime is following a deliberate policy of militarization of civilian institutions.” And second, showing that this regime is wedded to violence to a pathological degree - we are used to associating depraved, pleasure-taking violence to the brutal regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad, but Sisi’s draws from similar wells. * Yezid Sayigh, Senior Fellow, Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center *Egypt under El-Sisi is without a doubt a necessary read for anyone trying to grasp the basic ways Egyptian political life has been transformed under Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. -- Usman Butt * The New Arab *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1: Genesis Chapter 2: The New Leviathan Chapter 3: There will be blood Chapter 4: Pots, Pans, and Guns Chapter 5: Ozymandias
£18.00
Tuttle Publishing The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps: The Bloody
Book Synopsis"Power to them meant everything. It was founded on courage, which begot honor. And by this courage and for this honor they fought to the death."The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps tells the thrilling story of the Shinsengumi—the legendary corps of Samurai warriors tasked with keeping order in Kyoto during the final chaotic years of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1600-1868).This book recounts the fascinating tales of political intrigue, murder and mayhem surrounding the fearsome Shinsengumi, including: The infamous slaughter at Ikidaya Inn where, after learning of a plan to torch the city, a group of Shinsengumi viciously attacked and killed a group of anti-Tokugawa plotters The bloody assassination of Serizawa Kamo, the Shinsengumi leader, under highly suspicious circumstances The final tumultuous battles of the civil war in which the Shinsengumi fought and died in a series of doomed last stands Author and Samurai history expert Romulus Hillsborough uses letters, memoirs, interviews and eyewitness accounts to paint a vivid picture of the Shinsengumi, their origins, violent methods and the colorful characters that led the group.Trade Review"So, what do the Hell's Angels and the Shinsengumi have in common? They both had a propensity for violence, a strict internal code of conduct, and an alarmingly excessive reaction to insult, real or perceived. Also, they probably would have slaughtered each other on sight." --Goodreads
£12.59
Princeton University Press The House of Government
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the 2018 PROSE Award in World History, Association of American Publishers""Honorable Mention for the 2019 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies, Nanovic Institute, University of Notre Dame""Winner of the 2018 George L. Mosse Prize, American Historical Association""Winner of the 2018 Norris and Carol Hundley Award, Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association""Shortlisted for the 2018 Pushkin House Russian Book Prize""Selected as a New York Times Editors’ Choice, Aug 24, 2017""One of The Spectator 2017 Books of the Year""One of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2017""One of The Times Literary Supplement’s Books of the Year 2017""One of The Guardian’s Best Books of 2017""One of Open Letters Monthly’s “Our Year in Reading 2017""One of the Economist.com "Wise Words 2017 Books of the Year" in History""One of the Millions.com “A Year in Reading 2017: Stephen Dodson”""One of World’s 2017 Books of the Year in “History”""One of London Review Bookshop’s Best History Books, Christmas 2017""Selected for Le Monde’s “Monde des livres” 2017 (chosen by Nicolas Weill)""One of The Australian’s Books of the Year 2017 (chosen by Louis Nowra)""One of the Times Colonist Favorite Books of 2017 (chosen by Adrian Dix)""One of Mosaic's Best Books of 2018 (Ruth Wisse)"
£18.00
Princeton University Press The Revolutionary City
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the Luebbert Best Book Award, Comparative Politics Section of the American Political Science Association""The most important new book on revolutions to appear in decades."---Jack A. Goldstone, Mobilization
£27.00
Swift Press The World Turned Upside Down: A History of the
Book SynopsisYang Jisheng's The World Turned Upside Down is the definitive history of the Cultural Revolution, in withering and heartbreaking detail.As a major political event and a crucial turning point in the history of the People's Republic of China, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (19661976) marked the zenith as well as the nadir of Mao Zedong's ultra-leftist politics. Reacting in part to the Soviet Union's "revisionism" that he regarded as a threat to the future of socialism, Mao mobilized the masses in a battle against what he called "bourgeois" forces within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This ten-year-long class struggle on a massive scale devastated traditional Chinese culture as well as the nation's economy.Following his groundbreaking and award-winning history of the Great Famine, Tombstone, Yang Jisheng here presents the only history of the Cultural Revolution by an independent scholar based in mainland China, and makes a crucial contribution to understanding those years'' lasting influence today.The World Turned Upside Down puts every political incident, major and minor, of those ten years under extraordinary and withering scrutiny, and arrives in English at a moment when contemporary Chinese governance is leaning once more toward a highly centralized power structure and Mao-style cult of personality.
£13.49
HarperCollins Publishers The Embroidered Book
Book Synopsis*Winner of the Aurora Award for Best Novel*Spellbinding' JJA HarwoodAn entertaining and dark read' StylistAn absorbing novel' GuardianBeautifully written' Elizabeth ChadwickPower is not something you are given. Power is something you take. When you are a woman, it is a little more difficult, that's all'1768. Charlotte, daughter of the Habsburg Empress, arrives in Naples to marry a man she has never met. Her sister Antoine is sent to France, and in the mirrored corridors of Versailles they rename her Marie Antoinette.The sisters are alone, but they are not powerless. When they were only children, they discovered a book of spells spells that work, with dark and unpredictable consequences.In a time of vicious court politics, of discovery and dizzying change, they use the book to take control of their lives.But every spell requires a sacrifice. And as love between the sisters turns to rivalry, they will send Europe spiralling into revolution.Brimming with romance, betrayal, and enchantmenTrade Review‘An absorbing novel … Heartfield sustains a fine balance between history and fantasy’Guardian ‘Where fantasy and history meet … an entertaining and dark read’Stylist ‘Reminded me in places of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I loved the depth of characterisation and the feel of the magic … beautifully written’Elizabeth Chadwick, bestselling and award-winning author of The Summer Queen ‘Richly imagined and skilfully told, The Embroidered Book is an intricate and spellbinding tale’JJA Harwood, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Shadow in the Glass ‘The Embroidered Book is superb from its opening scene to its heartbreaking end … Politics, magic, love, and sacrifice compete on equal terms in a sweeping, absolutely splendid epic novel about two sisters and familial love. If you like historical feminist fantasy, you will love The Embroidered Book’Lisbeth Campbell, author of The Vanished Queen ‘Sacrifice, family, dreams, and deep, dark magic, The Embroidered Book is a triumph’Julie E. Czerneda, author of The Gossamer Mage ‘Seamlessly weaves together real historical events into a stunning narrative that I'm sure will grip readers from the very first page to the very last. I could almost believe the book itself had been enchanted!’Ann Sei Lin, author of Rebel Skies ‘What can I say about this book? It is extraordinary. I didn't know how deeply I needed a story about sisters Charlotte and Antoine (later Marie Antoinette) and their complicated, courtly, beautiful, magical world’E. Catherine Tobler, author of The Necessity of Stars PRAISE FOR KATE HEARTFIELD: ‘Heartfield's scenes brim with excitement’Booklist ‘Written with arresting detail and challenges literary tropes about women’Publishers Weekly
£8.54
Oxford University Press Origins Of The French Revolution
Book SynopsisThis revised and updated edition of the standard introduction to the origins of the greatest of all revolutions incorporates and critically appraises the results of a new generation of research and interpretation. It thus remains the essential starting point for study of the subject.Table of ContentsIntroduction ; PART I: WRITINGS ON REVOLUTIONARY ORIGINS SINCE 1939 ; 1. The Classic Interpretation ; PART II: THE BREAKDOWN OF THE OLD REGIME ; 4. The Financial Crisis ; 5. The System of Government ; 6. Opposition ; 7. Public Opinion ; 8. Reform and its Failure 1787-88 ; PART III: THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER ; 9. The Nobility ; 10. The Bourgeoisie ; 11. The Election Campaign September 1788- to May 1789 ; 12. The Economic Crisis ; 13. The Estates-General, May and June 1789 ; 14. The People of Paris ; 15. The Peasantry ; 16. Conclusion: The New Regime and its Principles ; Abbreviations, Notes, Further Reading, Index of Authors Cited, General Index
£49.40
John Wiley and Sons Ltd The Haitian Revolution: Capitalism, Slavery and
Book SynopsisIt is impossible to understand capitalism without analyzing slavery, an institution that tied together three world regions: Europe, the Americas, and Africa. The exploitation of slave labor led to a form of proto-globalization in which violence was indispensable to the production of wealth. Against the background of this expanding circulation of capital and slave labor, the first revolution in Latin America took place: the Haitian Revolution, which began in 1791 and culminated with Haiti’s declaration of independence in 1804. Taking the Haitian Revolution as a paradigmatic case, Grüner shows that modernity is not a linear evolution from the center to the periphery but, rather, a co-production developed in the context of highly unequal power relations, where extreme forms of conquest and exploitation were an indispensable part of capital accumulation. He also shows that the Haitian Revolution opened up a path to a different kind of modernity, or “counter-modernity,” a path along which Latin America and the Caribbean have traveled ever since. A key work of critical theory from a Latin American perspective, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of critical and cultural theory and of Latin America, as well as anyone concerned with the global impact of capitalism, colonialism, and race.Trade Review“Eduardo Grüner’s remarkable book is not only a brilliant discussion of slavery and the Haitian Revolution; it is also a profound philosophical and critical reflection, from the viewpoint of the slaves’ rebellion, on the contradictions of Eurocentric Enlightenment and of Western (capitalist) modernity.”Michael Löwy, author of The Theory of Revolution in the Young Marx “What is revolutionary today about the Haitian Revolution, in which African slaves brought Napoleon's army to ignominious defeat? How does it fundamentally challenge ways of thinking not just about modern history, but about thinking itself? Read Grüner’s book to find the answers to these pertinent questions.”Michael Taussig, Professor, Columbia University, Class of 1933Table of ContentsPreface by Gisela CatanzaroPrologueChapter 1: The Category of Slavery and Modern Racism Elements for an Ethno-Historical Sociology of Ancient and Modern SlaveryThe Question of RacismRacism in “Early Modernity” The Traces of Time A Better World? Chapter 2: The Rebellion of the (Slave) Masses and the Haitian Revolution On the Combined and UnevenFrom Particularism to (False) Universalism: A “Philosophical Revolution”The (Uncertain) Logic of Slave RebellionsThe Rest of the Americas Enter Saint-Domingue/Haiti A Portrait of Saint-Domingue/Haiti in 1791An Excursus on Vodou and its Revolutionary CharacterThe Social Complexities of Saint-DomingueThe Confused Dynamic of the RevolutionThe Meaning(s) of the Haitian RevolutionOn “Creative” ViolenceChapter 3: The Disavowed “Philosophical Revolution”: From Enlightenment Thought to the Crisis of Abstract Universalism Shadows in the Enlightenment: Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Slavery Slavery without Scare Quotes: Between Hegel and MarxThe Black Enlightenment: The Haitian “Constitutional Revolution” The Difficulties of Theorizing (Haitian) RevolutionLiterature and Art Have Their SayEpilogue
£17.09
Catalyst Books All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South
Book SynopsisA Kirkus Reviews Best YA Book of 2022 A USBBY 2023 Outstanding International BookA 2022 Foreword INDIES Bronze Winner (Graphic Novels & Comics Category)Honorable mention, 2023 Children's Africana Book Awards2022 VLA Graphic Novel Diversity Award Overfloweth honoreeNominated for the TLA Maverick List All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa revives six true stories of resistance by marginalized South Africans against the country’s colonial government in the years leading up to Apartheid. In six parts—each of which is illustrated by a different South African artist—All Rise shares the long-forgotten struggles of ordinary, working-class women and men who defended the disempowered during a tumultuous period in South African history. From immigrants and miners to tram workers and washerwomen, the everyday people in these stories bore the brunt of oppression and in some cases risked their lives to bring about positive change for future generations. This graphic anthology breathes new life into a history dominated by icons, and promises to inspire all readers to become everyday activists and allies. The diverse creative team behind All Rise, from an array of races, genders, and backgrounds, is a testament to the multicultural South Africa dreamed of by the heroes in these stories—true stories of grit, compassion, and hope, now being told for the first time in print.Trade Review"Exhaustively researched, beautifully illustrated, completely unflinching. All Rise is exactly what a historical comic should be."— C.Spike Trotman, Cartoonist, Founder: Iron Circus Comics“Between the covers of All Rise, Richard Conyngham and a team – no a confederation – of South African artists pull back the curtains on the hidden history of popular resistance to oppression in South Africa before apartheid. Excavated from their hiding places in the archives, these are the virtually untold stories of working men and women – washers, miners, immigrant laborers, farmers. Most importantly, these stories are made legible to anyone, anywhere, as universal histories of defiance and struggle that use art and text to do more than either could alone. Splendid to read on your own, this is also a brilliant tool for the classroom or seminar, complete with original evidence and a plethora of supporting material.”— Trevor R. Getz, author of Abina and the Important Men“This beautifully illustrated graphic novel telling the story of cases about law and social justice in South Africa in the first half of the twentieth century brings them vividly to life. Not only a great read, it is also a valuable educational resource that should spark important conversations about law, (in)justice and history across our country.” – Kate O’Regan, retired Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa“An innovative and impactful way to tell our history. This is the history book I didn't know I needed!” – Dr. Sithembile Mbete, University of Pretoria"For anyone wanting to learn more about the pre-Apartheid culture of South Africa, this book provides a starting point, and with enough information that it would be possible to follow any one of these stories to more information." – ICv2 (Nick Smith, Library Technician and Community Services, Pasadena Public Library in California)“These are smaller, lesser-known stories of South Africa’s past, but no less powerful and important. The tales told within the pages of All Rise are anchored in history, and elevated by subtle and nuanced characters, written with recognition and respect for their roles in these important events. The diversity of art flavours each tale with its own distinct atmosphere, complimenting and enhancing Conyngham’s writing and making every story uniquely accessible.” – Luke Molver, author/illustrator, Shaka Rising and King Shaka: Zulu Legend"As a history teacher, one of the biggest challenges in the classroom is to make the past relatable and accessible to students. All Rise does just that by bringing primary sources to life and contextualizing them in an approachable manner for students. The attention to detail is riveting and the historiography behind the stories will challenge students to think about new ways to present history to future generations. Though a historical work, the questions raised about human rights, citizenship, and systems of justice resonate strongly today. I am thankful for the work Richard Conyngham and all the folks at Catalyst Press are doing and look forward to the class discussions this reading will ignite." –Randall Martinez, Colorado AcademyIncluded in the University of Pittsburgh's Global Issues Through Literature SeriesNamed one of Brittle Paper's "100 Notable African Books of 2022"Included on the United States Board on Books for Young People 2023 Outstanding International Books ListHonorable mention, 2023 Children's Africana Book Awards“Perfect and detailed glimpses into real-life historical events.” – 2022 VLA Graphic Novel Diversity Award Committee, selected as an Overfloweth honoree
£999.99
Penguin Books Ltd The French Revolution
Book SynopsisIf you want to discover the captivating history of the French Revolution, this is the book for you . . .Concise, convincing and exciting, this is Christopher Hibbert''s brilliant account of the events that shook eighteenth-century Europe to its foundation. With a mixture of lucid storytelling and fascinating detail, he charts the French Revolution from its beginnings at an impromptu meeting on an indoor tennis court at Versailles in 1789, right through to the ''coup d''etat'' that brought Napoleon to power ten years later.In the process he explains the drama and complexities of this epoch-making era in the compelling and accessible manner he has made his trademark.''A spectacular replay of epic action'' Richard Holmes, The Times''Unquestionably the best popular history of the French Revolution'' The Good Book GuideTable of ContentsPrologue - court and country; the day of the tennis-court oath, 20 June 1789; the day of the Vainquers de la Bastille, 14 July 1789; the day of the market-women, 5-6 October 1789; the days of the federes and the flight to Varennes, 14-17 July 1790 and 19-26 June 1791; the days of the tuileries, 20 June and 10 August 1792; the days of the September massacres and the execution of the king, 2-7 September 1792 and 21 January 1793; the days of the enrages and the hebertists, 28 May-2 June and 4-5 September 1793; the days of the terror, October-December 1793 and March-July 1794; the days of Thermidor, 22-28 July 1794; the days of Germinal, Prairal and Vendemiaire, 1 April, 20 May and 4-6 October 1795; epilogue - the advent of Bonaparte; appendices.
£12.34
Penguin Books Ltd The Republic
Book SynopsisA gripping narrative of the most critical years in modern Ireland''s history - from Charles Townshend, author of Easter 1916TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014The protracted, terrible fight for independence pitted the Irish against the British and the Irish against other Irish. It was both a physical battle of shocking violence against a regime increasingly seen as alien and unacceptable and an intellectual battle for a new sort of country. The damage done, the betrayals and grim compromises put the new nation into a state of trauma for at least a generation, but at a nearly unacceptable cost the struggle ended: a new republic was born.Charles Townshend''s Easter 1916 opened up the astonishing events around the Rising for a new generation and in The Republic he deals, with the same unflinchingly wish to get to the truth behind the legend, with the most critical years in Ireland''s history. There has been a great temptation to view these years through the prisms of martyrology and good-and-evil. The picture painted by Townshend is far more nuanced and sceptical - but also never loses sight of the ordinary forms of heroism performed by Irish men and women trapped in extraordinary times.''The author has devoted his life to the study of Irish history and this huge work is the pinnacle of his labours'' John Banville on Easter 1916Trade ReviewElectric ... [a] magisterial and essential book -- Roy Foster * Irish Times *[A] tour de force ... wonderful ... brilliantly written history ... Townshend's book can only inspire admiration -- John Lee * Irish Mail on Sunday *Highly detailed and rich ... [a] magisterial and judicious narrative ... this must surely be one of the definitive texts on this period of Anglo-Irish history -- Mary Kenny * Literary Review *Charles Townshend's monumental work [is] bold in ambition, scope and execution ... a work of broad and confident understanding, characterised by a uniform care in its approach to complex and controversial material ... An intensely compelling and often discomfiting narrative, which candidly explores four years of personal and intimate violence * Tablet *Magisterial ... intensely gruelling but hugely impressive ... for people who prefer to know the facts ... [a] fine achievement of breathing new life into a subject that some historians might assume had already been done to death * Sunday Business Post *For those interested in a reliable and empathetic introduction to the topic, this is now the best place to start * BBC History Magazine *A great read ... it has certainly set a very high standard for others to measure up to -- Marianne Elliott * Times Higher Education *A well-sourced, severely objective account of the origins and courses of the wars that followed the Easter Rising * Irish Catholic *Charles Townshend's The Republic . . . nails the Irish revolutionary events of 1918-23 with his inimitable kind of forensic panache -- Roy Foster * Times Literary Supplement BOOKS OF THE YEAR *
£14.24
Oxford University Press Inc The Glory and the Sorrow
Book SynopsisAn intimate history of an ordinary Parisian citizen and his neighbors that reflects on the origins and radicalization of the French Revolution.What was it like to live through one of the most transformational periods in world history? In The Glory and the Sorrow, eminent historian Timothy Tackett answers this question through a masterful recreation of the world of Adrien Colson, a minor lawyer who lived in Paris at the end of the Old Regime and during the first eight years of the French Revolution. Based on over a thousand letters written by Colson to his closest friend, this book vividly narrates everyday life for an ordinary citizen during extraordinary times, as well as the life of a neighborhood on a small street in central Paris. It explores the real, day-to-day experience of a revolution: not only the thrill, the joy, and the enthusiasm, but also the uncertainty, the confusion, the anxiety, and the disappointments. While Colson reported on major events such as the storming of the Bastille and the King''s flight to Varennes, his correspondence underscores the extent to which the great majority of Parisians--and no doubt of the French population more generally--in no way anticipated the Revolution; the incessant circulation and power of rumors of impending disasters in Paris, not just in the summer of 1789 but continually from the autumn of 1789 throughout the Revolutionary decade; and how this affected popular psychology and behavior. In doing so, this account demonstrates how a Parisian and his neighbors were radicalized over the course of the Revolution.An evocative account of Colson''s time and place, The Glory and the Sorrow is a compelling microhistory of Revolutionary France.Trade ReviewThis fine book emphasises and dramatizes complexity and contingency in the lives of the capital and its residents. It reminds us how such quotidian topics as cnanine leashes, tenants leases, and urban gossip can open windows into another place and time. * Jeffrey Merrick, New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century *A fascinating and tantalizing volume...that can be read with pleasure and recognition...by any scholar of the late Eighteenth century and its turbulent social and political histories. * David Andress, French History *In 1920, the Soviet Union became the first country in the world to legalize abortion on demand. But in 1936, the Soviet leadership criminalized abortion: the collectivization of the early 1930s was followed by famine that took the lives of millions of people, and the government grew eager to recover the population. Drawing on an amazing wealth of archival material, Nakachi traces the dynamic of Soviet reproductive policies that were invariably guided by pronatalist goals but almost always had damaging consequences. * Foreign Affairs *The Glory and the Sorrow is a stunning account that integrates a lifetime of research, knowledge, and deep understanding of one's historical actors. It wrestles with enduring questions regarding the local nature of popular activism and the political radicalization of most Parisians. It is a masterclass in animating history as experience, and it will be a gift for generations of scholars and students to come. * Katie Jarvis, H-France Forum *There are many reasons why Tim Tackett's contribution to our knowledge of the French Revolution commands such attention, but...one aspect in particular...[is its] place...in scholarship on emotions in the Revolution....While The Glory and the Sorrow centres on the life of one man, our understanding of his experience of the Revolution is couched very much in terms of his profound and shifting emotions—from the dizzying heights of 1789...to the 'sorrow' of 1794, as the intense expectations of the early years foundered against the crashing impact of war, betrayal and fear. Tim's unfolding of the events of the Revolution through the emotional registers of one man, offer us, as readers in the twenty-first century a way into understanding what the Revolution meant for the generation that lived through it....We must be grateful that...Colson's letters remain to us as a window on a tumultuous time in world history. * Marisa Linton, H-France Forum *Evocative and engaging.... Colson's own experience reveals the state of tension that existed throughout the revolutionary years, between inspiration and hope for a better future on the one hand, and anxiety, desperation and sheer terror on the other. This was not helped by the swirl of rumour and speculation that enveloped the political conversations among Colson's neighbours and friends. Yet it is equally clear that Colson worked hard to disentangle reliable from misleading and downright false information. This may have been because as a lawyer he was especially well-equipped to examine the evidence critically...but it is none the less a reminder to historians that just because a rumour was recorded, it did not mean that everyone credulously believed it. It also holds up a mirror to our own age, enveloped as it is in fake news, misinformation and gossip, no less than was Colson's world. * Michael Rapport, H-France Forum *In The Glory and the Sorrow, Tackett's lively depiction of the initial years of the Revolution challenges us all to match the vivacity and rigor of his analysis and apply them to the entire Revolutionary era....Tackett has painted a detailed portrait of how a small-time, single lawyer from a small, frontier town lived quietly in Paris until the shocks of 1789 transformed his world....By implication and example, it makes a number of important arguments about the causes and consequences of Revolutionary political transformation. * Jeff Horn, H-France Forum *On one level The Glory and the Sorrow can be read as a beautifully written biography, resurrecting a life that had been lost to history. But it is so much more than that, offering a compelling insight into both revolutionary dynamics and popular emotions in a city in crisis. * ALAN FORREST, University of York, FAMILY & COMMUNITY HISTORY *Adrien-Joseph Colson was the Mr Ordinary of ancien régime France....But 1789 also effected a radical change on Mr Ordinary Colson, a startling political awakening....Historians of the Revolution will warmly welcome this fine microhistorical biography. It shows Revolutionary radicalization at work on an utterly unremarkable figure who, in the Revolution, along with his neighbourhood, discovered a new set of values and a new political identity within a wider national fraternity. * Colin Jones, Times Literary Supplement *Drawing on an extraordinarily riche cache of letters, this biography of an ordinary eighteenth-century Parisian gives a marvelously vivid sense of what it was like to live through the last years of France's Old Regime and to participate, at ground level, in the French Revolution. Timothy Tackett has drawn on his unparalleled expertise in the period to produce a biography that is also an illumination—and one that college students in particular will appreciate. * David A. Bell, author of Men on Horseback: The Power of Charisma in the Age of Revolution *This rich and evocative microhistory brings the late Old Regime and French Revolution alive through the experiences of one small-time Parisian lawyer. Adrien-Joseph Colson turns out to be a likeable and very human figure. As Timothy Tackett explores his reflections and quandaries, The Glory and the Sorrow makes for compelling reading. Once again, Tackett analyzes revolutionary dynamics with insight and vision. * Suzanne Desan, author of The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France *Adrien Colson's letters reveal how utterly unexpected the French Revolution was for all who lived through it and how everyday citizens of Paris managed to ride the successive waves of optimism, excitement, uncertainty, and fear. Beautifully contextualized by one of the leading historians of the French Revolution, this book makes you feel like a witness to history. Unless you know how to travel through time, you can't get much closer to the events of the French Revolution than this. * Paul Friedland, Cornell University *There is no better way to experience the hopes, anxieties, and terrors churned out by the French Revolution than this very personal account of an ordinary man in Paris and no better guide to making sense of that experience than Tim Tackett. He has that rare talent for finding archival gems and then gracefully revealing their significance. The reader can't help but feel what Adrien Colson feels as he encounters the excitement, mysteries, and disappointments of revolutionary Paris. * Lynn Hunt, author of History: Why It Matters *Adrien Colson was a Parisian lawyer who lived through the waning ancien régime and the most turbulent years of the French Revolution. He would have disappeared from history were it not for the 1,000 letters he sent to a friend in central France. In them he gave eyewitness testimony of the revolution as it caught flame in ways neither he nor his neighbour...could have predicted. Timothy Tackett deftly uses the correspondence to create a vivid picture of Colson and his thrilling, terrifying times: his book stands in the tradition of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou. Colson is revealed as representative of the masses - a man caught up in events, in thrall to rumour and the bewildering speed of events.. * Michael Prodger, New Statesman *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Prologue Chapter 1 Arrival in Paris Chapter 2 Life in Paris before the Revolution Chapter 3 Making a Living Chapter 4 Understanding the World Chapter 5 The World Changes Chapter 6 Days of Glory Chapter 7 Rumor and Revolution Chapter 8 Becoming a Radical Chapter 9 Days of Sorrow Conclusion Appendix: Translations of Selected Letters Notes Bibliography Index
£23.49