Search results for ""crown""
Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc In Focus Chakra Healing: Your Personal Guide: Volume 7
Become a more complete peaceful, spiritual, emotional, and physical individual with this elegantly designed essential guide to chakras. Included inside the back cover is a beautifully illustrated 18 × 24–inch wall chart detailing the main characteristics of the major and minor chakras.Chakras are energy centers in our bodies that act as the seats of our internal functions, such as health, state of mind, and body functions, as well as our external environments, like alerting us when a place feels right for us or when it makes us feel uncomfortable. However, the six major chakras—base, sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, brow, and crown—are many times blocked or misaligned, bringing about a host of negative ailments, feelings, and emotions. Thankfully, chakras can be corrected through various healing practices explained in this guide.In Focus Chakra Healing provides in-depth summaries about each chakra, followed by expert advice from Roberta Vernon on how to identify and restore blocked, weak, or closed chakras through common holistic approaches, such as crystal healing, color healing, astrological healing, essential oils, and magic healing. Common ailments addressed: Overeating Digestive disorders Fatigue Allergies Emotional stress Physical stress Headaches The In Focus series applies a modern approach to teaching the classic body, mind, and spirit subjects. Authored by experts in their respective fields, these beginner’s guides feature smartly designed visual material that clearly illustrates key topics within each subject. As a bonus, each book includes reference cards or a poster, held in an envelope inside the back cover, that give you a quick, go-to guide containing the most important information on the subject.
£12.99
Orion Publishing Co Clash of Empires
HAS ROME FINALLY MET ITS MATCH?'A triumph!' Harry Sidebottom 'Exceptional' Anthony Riches'Fans of battle-heavy historical fiction will, justly, adore Clash of Empires' The Times****************THE MIGHT OF ROMEThe great general Hannibal Barca is on the verge of defeat. Victory will crown Rome the most powerful empire in the world. While the ambitious senator Flamininus plots his path to power...THE GLORY OF GREECEOnly unconquered Greece stands in the way of glory. King Philip V of Macedon's mighty phalanx is an enemy Rome has long feared, and one that has never known defeat.THE HEROES OF HISTORYDemetrios has dreamed of fighting with the phalanx his whole life, but the young villager will soon learn that, in a clash of empires, you're only ever one swing of the sword away from death - or entering legend.CLASH OF EMPIRES is the gripping first novel in a new series from the master of historical fiction - for fans of Simon Scarrow, Harry Sidebottom, Conn Iggulden and Bernard Cornwell.*** PRE-ORDER BEN KANE'S NEW NOVEL, THE FALLING SWORD, TODAY ***What readers are saying about Ben Kane's masterful new historical novel:'I have not read much about the Roman Invasion of Greece 200-197BC, so with a breath of fresh air up pops Ben Kane with a very masterful tale' Amazon review'Grabs you from the start and never lets go' - Harry Sidebottom, author of the THE LAST HOUR'Ben does a great job telling the story from both Greek and Roman perspective' Amazon review'I haven't enjoyed a book this much for ages' - Giles Kristian, author of LANCELOT
£9.04
Quercus Publishing Rose Nicolson: a vivid and passionate tale of 16th Century Scotland
'A tale I have for you.'Embra, winter of 1574. Queen Mary has fled Scotland, to raise an army from the French. Her son and heir, Jamie is held under protection in Stirling Castle. John Knox is dead. The people are unmoored and lurching under the uncertain governance of this riven land. It's a deadly time for young student Will Fowler, short of stature, low of birth but mightily ambitious, to make his name.Fowler has found himself where the scorch marks of the martyrs burned at the stake can be seen on every street, where differences in doctrine can prove fatal, where the feuds of great families pull innocents into their bloody realm. There he befriends the austere stick-wielding philosopher Tom Nicolson, son of a fishing family whose sister Rose, untutored, brilliant and exceedingly beautiful exhibits a free-thinking mind that can only bring danger upon her and her admirers. The lowly students are adept at attracting the attentions of the rich and powerful, not least Walter Scott, brave and ruthless heir to Branxholm and Buccleuch, who is set on exploiting the civil wars to further his political and dynastic ambitions. His friendship and patronage will lead Will to the to the very centre of a conspiracy that will determine who will take Scotland's crown.Rose Nicolson is a vivid, passionate and unforgettable novel of this most dramatic period of Scotland's history, told by a character whose rise mirrors the conflicts he narrates, the battles between faith and reason, love and friendship, self-interest and loyalty. It confirms Andrew Greig as one of the great contemporary writers of fiction.
£9.99
Little, Brown Book Group Blood of Assassins: (The Wounded Kingdom Book 2) To save a king, kill a king...
***Look out for The Bone Ships, the start of a new series by RJ Barker!***'Reveals its mysteries with the style of a magic show and the artful grace of a gifted storyteller' Nicholas Eames, author of Kings of the WyldTO SAVE A KING, KILL A KING . . .The assassin Girton Club-foot and his master have returned to Maniyadoc in hope of finding sanctuary, but death, as always, dogs Girton's heels. The place he knew no longer exists. War rages across Maniyadoc, with three kings claiming the same crown - and one of them is Girton's old friend Rufra. Girton finds himself hurrying to uncover a plot to murder Rufra on what should be the day of the king's greatest victory. But while Girton deals with threats inside and outside Rufra's war encampment, he can't help wondering if his greatest enemy hides beneath his own skin. Praise for this trilogy 'Outstanding . . . Kept me reading well into the early hours of the morning' James Islington, author of The Shadow of What Was Lost 'Dead gods, dread magic, and a lead that feels like a breath of fresh air. Great fun' Peter Newman, author of The Vagrant 'Readers will appreciate Barker's complex mythology and smoothly flowing plot' Publishers Weekly 'Riddled with intrigue and dangerous magic, this is a hugely enjoyable debut' Jennifer Williams, author of The Copper Promise 'A dark-humoured game of cat and mouse between assassins, with traitors on all sides' David Dalglish, author of the Shadowdance seriesThe Wounded Kingdom trilogy begins with AGE OF ASSASSINS, continues with BLOOD OF ASSASSINS and will continue with KING OF ASSASSINS.
£9.99
Headline Publishing Group The Royal Wardrobe: peek into the wardrobes of history's most fashionable royals
'I loved this book!' - Alison Weir'[A] lively, gossipy forage through royal wardrobes' - Daily Mail'A sparkling history' - Dr Kate StrasdinPeek into the wardrobes of history's most fashionable royalsWhy did women wear such heavy and uncomfortable skirts in the Elizabethan era?What the hell happened to Charles II's pubic hair wig?How did Princess Diana's revenge dress become so iconic?Fashion for the royal family has long been one of their most powerful weapons. Every item of their clothing is imbued with meaning, history and majesty, telling a complex tale of the individuals who wore them and the houses they represented.From the draping of a fabric to the arrangements of jewels, the clothing worn by royals is anything but coincidental. King at just nine years old, Edward VI's clothes were padded to make him seem stronger and more manly; and the ever-conscious Elizabeth II insisted her coronation gown include all the representative flora of the commonwealth nations, and not just that of the United Kingdom. Yet reigning monarchs are not the only ones whose fashion sensibilities could mean make or break for the crown.Original and enlightening, Rosie Harte's complete history delicately weaves together the fashion faux pas and Vogue-worthy triumphs that chart the history of our royals from the Tudors to the Victorians right through to King Charles III and our twenty-first-century royal family. Travelling far beyond the bounds of the court, The Royal Wardrobe reveals the economic, social and political consequences of royal apparel, be it breeches, tiara, wig or waistcoat.Each stitch has a story, you just need to know how to read them
£19.80
Salt Publishing Between a Drowning Man
Martyn Crucefix’s new collection of poems trace the forensic unfolding of two landscapes – contemporary Britain post-2016 and the countryside of the Marche in central, eastern Italy. Both places are vividly evoked – the coffee shops, traffic tailbacks, shopping malls, tourist-dotted hillsides and valleys of modern Britain appear in stark contrast to the hilltop villages, church spires, deep gorges, natural history and Classical ruins of Italy. Both landscapes come to represent psychic journeys: closer to home there is division everywhere – depicted in both tragic and comic detail – that only a metaphorical death of the self seems able to counteract. Closer to the Mediterranean, the geographical and personal, or romantic, divisions are also shown ultimately to offer possibilities of transcendence. The poems of the longer sequence, ‘Works and Days’, are startlingly free-wheeling, allusive – brilliantly deploying source materials and inspiration from Hesiod’s original and the 10/12th century Indian vacana poems – all bound together by the repeated refrain of bridges breaking down. The Italian poems, as a crown of sonnets, are more formally controlled but the repeating of first and last lines of the individual poems likewise serves to suggest the presence of an overarching unity. In the end, both sequences travel towards death which – while not denying the reality of human mortality, the passage of time – is intended to represent a challenge to the powerful dividing walls between Thee and Me, the liberation of empathetic feeling, even the Daoist erasure of the assumed gulf between self and not-self: ‘these millions of us aspiring to the condition / of ubiquitous dust on the fiery water’.
£10.99
Boydell & Brewer Ltd The King's Bench: Bailiwick Magistrates and Local Governance in Normandy, 1670-1740
An examination of kings' courts and lords' courts in Normandy that opens a new chapter in the debate over absolutism, sovereignty, and the nature of the state in early modern France. Hidden deep in the countryside of France lay early modern Europe's largest bureaucracy: twenty- to thirty-thousand royal bailiwick and seigneurial courts that served more than eighty-five percent of the king's subjects. The crowncourts and lords' courts were far more than arenas of litigation, in the modern sense. They had become the nexus of local governance by the middle of the seventeenth century, a rich breeding ground for men who controlled the villages, towns, and bailiwicks of France. Yet even as the centralizing state was reaching its zenith under Louis XIV, the king's largest permanent bureaucracy became increasingly alienated and cut adrift from the crown, many decades before the French Revolution. In The King's Bench, Zoë Schneider vividly brings to life the teeming world of the local courts, with their magistrates and jailers, townspeople and peasants. Together they contested that vital border where the private world of families and property collided with the public commonwealth. Schneider chronicles the transformation of local governance after the mid-seventeenth century, as judges and their courts became the face of public order in the countryside. With this richly detailed local study of Normandy in the seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries, Zoë Schneider opens a new chapter in the debate over absolutism, sovereignty, and the nature of the state in early modern France. Zoë A. Schneider has taught at Georgetown University and with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
£94.50
Duke University Press A Flock Divided: Race, Religion, and Politics in Mexico, 1749–1857
Catholicism, as it developed in colonial Mexico, helped to create a broad and remarkably inclusive community of Christian subjects, while it also divided that community into countless smaller flocks. Taking this contradiction as a starting point, Matthew D. O’Hara describes how religious thought and practice shaped Mexico’s popular politics. As he shows, religion facilitated the emergence of new social categories and modes of belonging in which individuals—initially subjects of the Spanish crown, but later citizens and other residents of republican Mexico—found both significant opportunities for improving their place in society and major constraints on their ways of thinking and behaving. O’Hara focuses on interactions between church authorities and parishioners from the late-colonial era into the early-national period, first in Mexico City and later in the surrounding countryside. Paying particular attention to disputes regarding caste status, the category of “Indian,” and the ownership of property, he demonstrates that religious collectivities from neighborhood parishes to informal devotions served as complex but effective means of political organization for plebeians and peasants. At the same time, longstanding religious practices and ideas made colonial social identities linger into the decades following independence, well after republican leaders formally abolished the caste system that classified individuals according to racial and ethnic criteria. These institutional and cultural legacies would be profound, since they raised fundamental questions about political inclusion and exclusion precisely when Mexico was trying to envision and realize new forms of political community. The modes of belonging and organizing created by colonialism provided openings for popular mobilization, but they were always stalked by their origins as tools of hierarchy and marginalization.
£24.99
University of California Press The Red Count: The Life and Times of Harry Kessler
The life of Count Harry Kessler (1868-1937), the famous Anglo-German art patron, writer, and activist, offers a vivid and engrossing perspective on the tumultuous transformation of art and politics that took place in modern Europe between 1890 and 1930. In the first half of his career Kessler was one of the most ardent and well-known champions of aesthetic modernism in Imperial Germany, becoming a friend and patron to pioneering artists and writers of his day, most notably French sculptor Aristide Maillol, Belgian architect Henry van de Velde, English theater designer Gordon Craig, and Austrian poet and playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal and, in his capacity as director of the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Weimar and vice-president of the German Artists League, served as a spokesman and lightning rod for embattled modern art. In the aftermath of the First World War, in which he served as a soldier, propagandist, and secret agent, Kessler embarked on a public career as a committed internationalist and pacifist, a stance that led ultimately to his exile from Germany upon the Nazi seizure of power. Making use of the recently discovered portions of Kessler's extensive diaries, one of the most remarkable journals ever written, Laird Easton explains the reasons for this startling metamorphosis, showing for the first time the continuities between Kessler's prewar aestheticism and his postwar politics and highlighting his importance within the larger history of the rise of modern art and politics. This lively narrative, the first English-language biography of Harry Kessler, provides a rich and fascinating portrait of the man whom W. H. Auden called 'a crown witness of our times.'
£27.90
Yale University Press Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807-1815
This account of the final years of Britain's long war against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France places the conflict in a new—and wholly modern—perspective. Rory Muir looks beyond the purely military aspects of the struggle to show how the entire British nation played a part in the victory. His book provides a total assessment of how politicians, the press, the crown, civilians, soldiers, and commanders together defeated France. Beginning in 1807 when all of continental Europe was under Napoleon's sway, the author traces the course of the war through the Spanish uprising of 1808, the campaigns of the Duke of Wellington and Sir John Moore in Portugal and Spain, and the crossing of the Pyrenees by the British army, to the invasion of southern France and the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. Muir sets Britain's military operations on the Iberian Peninsula within the context of the wider European conflict, and he examines how diplomatic, financial, military, and political considerations combined to shape policy and priorities. Just as political factors influenced strategic military decisions, Muir contends, fluctuations of the war affected British political decisions. The book is based on a comprehensive investigation of primary and secondary sources, and on a thorough examination of the vast archives left by the Duke of Wellington. Muir offers vivid new insights on the personalities of Canning, Castlereagh, Perceval, Lord Wellesley, Wellington, and the Prince Regent, along with fresh information on the financial background of Britain's campaign. This vigorous narrative account will appeal to general readers and enthusiasts of the Napoleonic era, as well as academics with an interest in early nineteenth-century British political or military history.
£35.12
University of Notre Dame Press The Andean Hybrid Baroque: Convergent Cultures in the Churches of Colonial Peru
The Andean Hybrid Baroque is the first comprehensive study of the architecture and architectural sculpture of Southern Peru in the late colonial period (1660s-1820s), an enduring and polemical subject in Latin American art history. In the southern Andes during the last century and a half of colonial rule, when the Spanish crown was losing its grip on the Americas and Amerindian groups began organizing into activist and increasingly violent political movements, a style of architectural sculpture emerged that remains one of the most vigorous and creative outcomes of the meeting of two cultures. The Andean Hybrid Baroque (also known as "Mestizo Style"), was a flourishing school of carving distinguished by its virtuoso combination of European late Renaissance and Baroque forms with Andean sacred and profane symbolism, some of it originating in the pre-Hispanic era. The Andean Hybrid Baroque found its genesis and most comprehensive iconographical expression in the architecture of Catholic churches, chapels, cloisters, and conventual buildings. Drawing on hundreds of primary documents and on ethno-historical and anthropological literature that has rarely been applied to an art-historical subject, Gauvin Alexander Bailey provides the most substantial study of colonial Peruvian architecture in decades. The product of five years of photographic surveys in Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina, as well as research in governmental and ecclesiastical archives in Latin America and Europe, Bailey's richly illustrated study examines the construction history and decoration of forty-four churches. It offers a fundamentally new understanding of the chronology, regional variations, and diffusion of the Andean Hybrid Baroque style, as well as a fresh interpretation of its relationship to indigenous Andean culture.
£60.30
The University of Chicago Press Is Administrative Law Unlawful?
Is administrative law unlawful? This provocative question has become all the more significant with the expansion of the modern administrative state. While the federal government traditionally could constrain liberty only through acts of Congress and the courts, the executive branch has increasingly come to control Americans through its own administrative rules and adjudication, thus raising disturbing questions about the effect of this sort of state power on American government and society. With Is Administrative Law Unlawful?, Philip Hamburger answers this question in the affirmative, offering a revisionist account of administrative law. Rather than accepting it as a novel power necessitated by modern society, he locates its origins in the medieval and early modern English tradition of royal prerogative. Then he traces resistance to administrative law from the Middle Ages to the present. Medieval parliaments periodically tried to confine the Crown to governing through regular law, but the most effective response was the seventeenth-century development of English constitutional law, which concluded that the government could rule only through the law of the land and the courts, not through administrative edicts. Although the US Constitution pursued this conclusion even more vigorously, administrative power reemerged in the Progressive and New Deal Eras. Since then, Hamburger argues, administrative law has returned American government and society to precisely the sort of consolidated or absolute power that the US Constitution-and constitutions in general-were designed to prevent. With a clear yet many-layered argument that draws on history, law, and legal thought, Is Administrative Law Unlawful? reveals administrative law to be not a benign, natural outgrowth of contemporary government but a pernicious-and profoundly unlawful-return to dangerous pre-constitutional absolutism.
£28.78
Fernwood Publishing Co Ltd Nta'tugwaqanminen: Our Story: Evolution of the Gespe'gewa'gi Mi'gmaq
Nta'tugwaqanminen provides evidence that the Mi'gmaq of the Gespe'gewa'gi (Northern New Brunswick and the Gaspé Peninsula) have occupied their territory since time immemorial. They were the sole occupants of it prior to European settlement and occupied it on a continuous basis. This book was written through an alliance between the Mi'gmaq of Northern Gespe'gewa'gi (Gaspé Peninsula), their Elders and a group of eminent researchers in the field with the aim of reclaiming their history, both oral and written, in the context of what is known as knowledge re-appropriation. It also provides non-Aboriginal peoples with a view of how Mi'gmaq history looks when it is written from an Indigenous perspective.There are two voices in the book - that of the Mi'gmaq of the Gespe'gewa'gi, including the Elders, as they act as narrators of the collective history, and that of the researchers, who studied all possible aspects of this history, including advanced investigation on place names as indicators of migration patterns.Nta'tugwaqanminen speaks of the Gespe'gewa'gi Mi'gmaq vision, history, relation to the land, past and present occupation of the territory and their place names and what they reveal in terms of ancient territorial occupation. It speaks of the treaties they agreed to with the British Crown, the respect of these treaties on the part of the Mi'gmaq people and the disrespect of them from the various levels of governments. This book speaks about the dispossession the Mi'gmaq of Gespe'gewa'gi had to endure while the European settlers illegally occupied and developed the Gaspé Peninsula to their own advantage and the rights and titles the Mi'gmaq people still have on their lands.
£13.95
Goose Lane Editions The Tale of Don L'Orignal
Winner of the 1979 Governor General's Award for fiction, Antonine Maillet's virtuoso creation, The Tale of Don L'Orignal, is now back in print. Maillet's tale begins one day, not so very long ago but back in the youth of the world, when a hay-covered island materialized off shore, an island populated by fleas who soon took human form. The leader of this uncouth crew of have-nots, Don l'Orignal, wore a moose-antler crown as his badge of office. At his right hand were his brave lieutenants: his son, Noume, and his general, Michel-Archange. The general's wife, the doughty charwoman, spy, and rabble-rouser La Sagouine, had one finger in every pie and one raised to her neighbour, La Sainte. The Flea Islanders were constantly at odds with the almost as clever but far more civilized upper crust of the mainland village: the mayoress, the schoolteacher, the merchant, the banker. When they invaded and tried to steal a keg of molasses, the outcome of the mock-heroic battle was unclear, except that La Sainte's son, the hapless young Citrouille, and Adeline, the merchant's lovely daughter, had fallen in love. With the insider's accumulation of oral history, gossip, and shrewd hindsight, Antonine Maillet has conjured up a fictional Acadia that her ancestors would relish. Perhaps those who could read it would have even understood it: she wrote Don l'Orignal in a version of 16th-century domestic French that she adapted for modern readers. In this far-fetched, but always entertaining fable, Maillet holds up a mirror to Acadian history and to an all too fallible human nature.
£13.99
John Blake Publishing Ltd Joey Dunlop: The Definitive Biography
With a foreword by Carl FogartyJoey Dunlop's story is one of towering triumphs and desperate tragedies in almost equal measure. Born poor - dirt poor - with no running water, no electricity, he was the definition of the everyman hero, earning the title 'King of the Roads' in what must be considered one of the world's most extreme sports - motorcycle road racing. And as well as being voted Northern Ireland's greatest ever sportsman, he remains the most loved and most successful road racer of all time. Joey Dunlop won the hearts and minds of millions during his thirty-one-year career, culminating in his greatest triumph in the year 2000 at the Isle of Man TT when, grey-haired, bespectacled, and approaching fifty years of age, he reclaimed his reputation as the greatest TT rider in history by defeating a whole new generation of talent and regaining the F1 crown for the first time in twelve years.But in road racing, tragedy is never very far away. Joey lost his life in a racing accident in July of 2000. It was just weeks after his final TT victory. More than 60,000 people attended Joey's funeral. Over twenty years after his untimely death, the sport has never truly recovered from his loss. Everyone with an interest in motorcycling knows the legend of Joey Dunlop but now, for the first time, they can get to know the man himself. This definitive new biography is the most comprehensive ever written on the man. In turns hilarious, triumphant and tragic, this is Dunlop's story as it has never been told before - by those who were part of it.
£18.00
Europa Editions (UK) Ltd Cathedral: a novel
***LONGLISTED: THE HWA GOLD CROWN 2021*** ***A Sunday Times BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021: "An ambitious, epic debut."*** ***A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021*** A Times BOOK OF THE MONTH: "Beautifully written and profoundly insightful." “A memorable tapestry of politics, religion and conflicting human desires.” —The Sunday Times “Cathedral is a masterpiece, one of the best historical novels I’ve read in a long time. Spellbinding and so evocative of place and time. A triumph.”—Dan Jones "Fascinating, fun, and gripping to the very end."—Roddy Doyle A sweeping story about obsession, mysticism, art, and earthly desire. At the centre of this story, is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 12th and 13th centuries in the fictional town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the bishop to his treasurer to local merchants and lowly stonecutters, everyone, even the town’s Jewish denizens, is implicated and affected by the slow rise of Hagenburg’s Cathedral, which in no way enforces morality or charity. Around this narrative core, Ben Hopkins has constructed his own monumental edifice, a choral novel that is rich with the vicissitudes of mercantilism, politics, religion, and human enterprise. Ambitious, immersive, a remarkable feat of imagination, Cathedral deftly combines historical fiction, the literary novel of ideas, and a tale of adventure and intrigue. Fans of authors like Umberto Eco, Elif Shafak, Hilary Mantel, Ken Follett and Jose Saramago will delight at the atmosphere, the beautiful prose, and the vivid characters of Ben Hopkins’s Cathedral.
£16.99
Stanford University Press The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government
Why has power in the West assumed the form of an "economy," that is, of a government of men and things? If power is essentially government, why does it need glory, that is, the ceremonial and liturgical apparatus that has always accompanied it? In the early centuries of the Church, in order to reconcile monotheism with God's threefold nature, the doctrine of Trinity was introduced in the guise of an economy of divine life. It was as if the Trinity amounted to nothing more than a problem of managing and governing the heavenly house and the world. Agamben shows that, when combined with the idea of providence, this theological-economic paradigm unexpectedly lies at the origin of many of the most important categories of modern politics, from the democratic theory of the division of powers to the strategic doctrine of collateral damage, from the invisible hand of Smith's liberalism to ideas of order and security. But the greatest novelty to emerge from The Kingdom and the Glory is that modern power is not only government but also glory, and that the ceremonial, liturgical, and acclamatory aspects that we have regarded as vestiges of the past actually constitute the basis of Western power. Through a fascinating analysis of liturgical acclamations and ceremonial symbols of power—the throne, the crown, purple cloth, the Fasces, and more—Agamben develops an original genealogy that illuminates the startling function of consent and of the media in modern democracies. With this book, the work begun with Homo Sacer reaches a decisive point, profoundly challenging and renewing our vision of politics.
£23.99
Faber & Faber Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen
The image of Catherine of Aragon has always suffered in comparison to the heir-providing Jane Seymour or the vivacious eroticism of Anne Boleyn. But when Henry VIII married Catherine, she was an auburn-haired beauty in her twenties with a passion she had inherited from her parents, Isabella and Ferdinand, the joint-rulers of Spain who had driven the Moors from their country.This daughter of conquistadors showed the same steel and sense of command when organising the defeat of the Scots at the Battle of Flodden and Henry was to learn, to his cost, that he had not met a tougher opponent on or off the battlefield when he tried to divorce her.Henry VIII introduced four remarkable women into the tumultuous flow of England's history: Catherine of Aragon and her daughter 'Bloody' Queen Mary; and Anne Boleyn and her daughter, the Virgin Queen Elizabeth. 'From this contest, between two mothers and two daughters, was born the religious passion and violence that inflamed England for centuries,' says David Starkey. Reformation, revolution and Tudor history would all have been vastly different without Catherine of Aragon.Giles Tremlett's new biography is the first in more than four decades to be dedicated entirely and uniquely to the tenacious woman whose marriage lasted twice as long as those of Henry's five other wives put together. It draws on fresh material from Spain to trace the dramatic events of her life through Catherine of Aragon's own eyes. 'Enthralling biography . . . this lively and richly detailed book . . . describing the queen's fierce battle to retain her crown, Tremlett brilliantly breathes life into the shadowy figure of a stubborn and finally heroic woman.' Daily Telegraph
£14.99
HarperCollins Publishers The Rose Code
A gripping, edge-of-your-seat historical novel from the bestselling author of The Alice Network and The Huntress! *Winner of Historical Novel of the Year in NetGalley UK’s Books of 2021* *Editors’ Pick Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Amazon US* ‘A terrific book bursting with vivid atmosphere’ Dinah Jefferies, #1 bestselling author of The Tea-Planter’s Wife ’Wonderful…A hugely satisfying and thrilling read’ Fern Britton, #1 bestselling author of Daughters of Cornwall ‘Immersive, thrilling and packed with wonderful characters…I absolutely loved every page of this incredible book’ Jill Mansell, bestselling author of Maybe This Time 1940, Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire. Three very different women are recruited to the mysterious Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla has the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses – but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, working to translate decoded enemy secrets. Self-made Mab masters the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds and the poverty of her East-End London upbringing. And shy local girl Beth is the outsider who trains as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts. 1947, London. Seven years after they first meet, on the eve of the royal wedding between Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, disaster threatens. Osla, Mab and Beth are estranged, their friendship torn apart by secrets and betrayal. Yet now they must race against the clock to crack one final code together, before it’s too late, for them and for their country. If you loved The Crown, don’t miss this riveting historical novel!
£9.99
HarperCollins Publishers Execution
The No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling series set during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, perfect for fans of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy and Netflix’s The Crown ‘Gripping’ Sunday Times ‘Fast-paced and entertaining’ Mail on Sunday A TREASONOUS PLOTEngland, 1586. Giordano Bruno, heretic turned spy, passes on vital information to spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham. A band of Catholic Englishmen are plotting to kill Queen Elizabeth and install Mary, Queen of Scots, on the English throne. A DEADLY TRAPWalsingham, already aware of the plot, is allowing it to progress. He hopes that Mary will put her support in writing – and condemn herself to a traitor's death. A QUEEN IN DANGER Bruno must go undercover, join the conspirators and stop them. A queen is destined to die; Bruno must make sure it is the right one… Praise for Execution ‘A brilliantly realised fictionalisation of the Babington plot against Elizabeth 1’ Observer ‘Execution has an atmospheric sense of place. The plot twists and turns’ The Times ‘Immaculate… the depth of period detail, the all-enveloping sense of time and place, and the sheer gory drama’ Metro ‘Sumptuous’ New York Times ‘Parris’s attention to the details of Elizabethan life and her ability to create characters of depth are again on display in a gripping narrative’ The Sunday Times ‘Fast-paced and entertaining’ Mail on Sunday ‘Parris is one of the stars of historical crime fiction and this, her sixth Giordano Bruno novel, is among her best’i ‘Superbly plotted, shimmeringly written, it will have you on the edge of your seat’ Kate Williams, author of The Storms of War ‘An impressive feat’ Marisa Haetzman, also writes as Ambrose Parry
£8.99
Pen & Sword Books Ltd The Forgotten German Genocide: Revenge Cleansing in Eastern Europe, 1945-50
The Potsdam Conference (officially known as the "Berlin Conference"), was held from 17 July to 2 August 1945 at Cecilienhof Palace, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm, in Brandenburg, and saw the leaders of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States, gathered together to decide how to demilitarise, denazify, decentralise, and administer Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender on 8 May (VE Day). They determined that the remaining German populations in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary - both the ethnic (Sudeten) and the more recent arrivals (as part of the long-term plan for the domination of Eastern Europe) - should to be transferred to Germany, but despite an undertaking that these would be effected in an orderly and humane manner, the expulsions were carried out in a ruthless and often brutal manner. Land was seized with farms and houses expropriated; the occupants placed into camps prior to mass expulsion from the country. Many of these were labour camps already occupied by Jews who had survived the concentration camps, where they were equally unwelcome. Further cleansing was carried out in Romania and Yugoslavia, and by 1950, an estimated 11.5 million German people had been removed from Eastern Europe with up to three million dead. The number of ethnic Germans killed during the 'cleansing' period is suggested at 500,000, but in 1958, Statistisches Bundesamt (the Federal Statistical Office of Germany) published a report which gave the figure of 1.6 million relating to expulsion-related population losses in Poland alone. Further investigation may in due course provide a more accurate figure to avoid the accusation of sensationalism.
£22.50
Pen & Sword Books Ltd James I , The King Who United Scotland and England
The life of King James VI who united England and Scotland under one crown and became James I in 1603 is marked by contradictions. Generally praised as a good king of Scotland and a poor English one, James was a deep theological thinker, but he also inspired a superstitious frenzy which resulted in the North Berwick witch hunt and trials in the 1590s. Scholar and pedant, he was in his own view God's appointed ruler, yet also a foul mouthed sloven and forever tarnished with the title of the Wisest Fool in Christendom. The most glaring contrast in his personal life was between his image as a married family man and as a ruler who lavished indiscreet affection on a series of men whom he invested with considerable power. This book approaches James through the lens of his relationships with his major favourites. First was Anglo-French lord Esme D'Aubigny, then Scottish squire Robert Carr (later Earl of Somerset), and finally the consummate nobleman George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. 'A king will have need to use secrecy in many things,' the king wrote in one of his books. Although his private life was sometimes astonishingly visible, there are still many mysteries about James I as a man rather than a ruler. This work tracks the king's life from a barren childhood through a succession of plots, intrigues and conspiracies in Scotland which largely forged, or deformed, his character. Beyond his complex and disputed connection with these men the book looks at his relationship with his wife, sponsorship of the arts, and contains a reappraisal of the first and most neglected historical mystery of his first reign, the Gowrie Conspiracy.
£22.50
Pen & Sword Books Ltd The Great Survivor of the Tudor Age: The Life and Times of Lord William Paget
Like Cromwell and Wolsey before him, William Paget came from nowhere to become one of Henry VIII's most powerful 'new men'. After serving as ambassador to the Court of Francis I of France, he became Henry's most influential foreign policy advisor and developed a close relationship with Emperor Charles V. He had the king's ear in Henry's later years, was the key player in drafting his will ( was it a forgery?) and in enabling Somerset to become Lord Protector in the reign of the boy king, Edward VI. For a while, he was Somerset's 'right-hand man'. When Somerset fell, Paget was imprisoned in the Tower and nearly executed. But he survived and regained power. He had a major role in delivering the Crown to the Catholic queen, Mary, and in arranging her marriage to Philip II of Spain, whom he then advised on English politics. He kept in with the Protestant princess Elizabeth and survived to have influence when she came to the throne. William was the founder of the aristocratic Paget family - Barons of Beaudesert, Earls of Uxbridge and Marquesses of Anglesey. From records of the mansion that he built on a site next to today's Heathrow Airport, a picture has been created of how life was actually lived in a Tudor household at the personal family level. The story is partly told from previously unexamined family letters. It is an exciting narrative of dramatic ups and downs: from rags to riches, plague to plenty, and prison to peerage. Court intrigues, conspiracies, rebellions and coups, follow one after the other. William is usually in the thick of it, the power behind the throne.
£22.50
Little, Brown Book Group The Martyr: Book Two of the Covenant of Steel
'A gritty, heart-pounding tale of betrayal and bloody vengeance' John Gwynne on The PariahTimes have changed for Alwyn Scribe. Once an outlaw, he's now a spymaster and sworn protector of Lady Evadine Courlain, whose visions of a demonic apocalypse have earned her the fanatical devotion of the faithful.Yet Evadine's growing fame has put her at odds with both Crown and Covenant. As trouble brews in the kingdom, both seek to exploit her position for their own ends.Sent to the Duchy of Alundia to put down a rebellion, Alwyn must rely on old instincts to fight for his new cause. Deadly feuds and ancient secrets are laid bare as war erupts, a war that will decide the fate of the Kingdom of Albermaine and, perhaps, prevent the coming of the prophesied Second Scourge.The Martyr is the sequel to The Pariah and continues the ruthless and gripping fantasy epic from New York Times bestseller Anthony Ryan, whose books have sold more than a million copies worldwide.Praise for the series'The Pariah is Anthony Ryan at his best. A fast-paced, brutal fantasy novel with larger-than-life characters and a plot full of intrigue and suspense' Grimdark Magazine 'Gritty and well-drawn, this makes a rich treat for George R. R. Martin fans' Publishers Weekly (starred review)Books by Anthony RyanRaven's ShadowBlood SongTower LordQueen of FireRaven's BladeThe Wolf's CallThe Black SongDraconis MemoriaThe Waking FireThe Legion of FlameThe Empire of AshesThe Covenant of SteelThe PariahThe MartyrThe TraitorWriting as A. J. RyanRed River Seven
£10.99
The University of Chicago Press The Indies of the Setting Sun: How Early Modern Spain Mapped the Far East as the Transpacific West
Padrón reveals the evolution of Spain’s imagining of the New World as a space in continuity with Asia. Narratives of Europe’s westward expansion often tell of how the Americas came to be known as a distinct landmass, separate from Asia and uniquely positioned as new ground ripe for transatlantic colonialism. But this geographic vision of the Americas was not shared by all Europeans. While some imperialists imagined North and Central America as undiscovered land, the Spanish pushed to define the New World as part of a larger and eminently flexible geography that they called las Indias, and that by right, belonged to the Crown of Castile and León. Las Indias included all of the New World as well as East and Southeast Asia, although Spain’s understanding of the relationship between the two areas changed as the realities of the Pacific Rim came into sharper focus. At first, the Spanish insisted that North and Central America were an extension of the continent of Asia. Eventually, they came to understand East and Southeast Asia as a transpacific extension of their empire in America called las Indias del poniente, or the Indies of the Setting Sun.The Indies of the Setting Sun charts the Spanish vision of a transpacific imperial expanse, beginning with Balboa’s discovery of the South Sea and ending almost a hundred years later with Spain’s final push for control of the Pacific. Padrón traces a series of attempts—both cartographic and discursive—to map the space from Mexico to Malacca, revealing the geopolitical imaginations at play in the quest for control of the New World and Asia.
£28.00
Penguin Random House Children's UK My Brother's Famous Bottom Gets Crowned!
Nicholas's neighbours are in a royal frenzy! They're celebrating the Queen's coronation (whatever that means) and everyone's gone BONKERS! Dad's dressing up as a banana and why has Cheese got a crown on his bottom? It's going to be the biggest street party they've ever had, until a letter from the Prince and Princess announcing the arrival of THEIR very own twins adds an extra-special surprise!* Jeremy Strong is the bestselling and award-winning author of The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog, My Brother's Famous Bottom, Cartoon Kid and Krazy Kow Saves the World, Well Almost! * The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog was the winner of the Red House Children's Book Award, and Jeremy was a World Book Day author. * Perfect for reluctant readers, and fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney, The Brilliant Wolrd of Tom Gates by Liz Pichon and Andy Stanton's Mr Gum books. * Cover illustrations by Nick Sharratt. Jeremy Strong once worked in a bakery, putting the jam into three thousand doughnuts every night. Now he puts the jam in stories instead, which he finds much more exciting. At the age of three, he fell out of a first-floor bedroom window and landed on his head. His mother says that this damaged him for the rest of his life and refuses to take any responsibility. He loves writing stories because he says it is 'the only time you alone have complete control and can make anything happen'. His ambition is to make you laugh (or at least snuffle). Jeremy Strong lives near Bath with his wife, Gillie, four cats and a flying cow. Join Jeremy Strong's Krazy Klub at www.jeremystrong.co.uk
£8.42
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co KG The Controversy over the Lord's Supper in Danzig 1561-1567: Presence and Practice -- Theology and Confessional Policy
In 1561, a Eucharistic controversy erupted in Danzig of the sixteenth century, sparked by disagreements on the real presence and the practical treatment of the Eucharistic elements. It was one of many inner-Lutheran struggles over the Lord's Supper in the years following the Reformation and therefore Bjorn Ole Hovda supplements the scientific studies on that topic. Different understandings of the presence of Christ during the Lord's Supper formed different religious norms of practice. On the one hand, the controversy is here analysed as a discussion on doctrine between opposing ecclesiastical factions, set in the context of reformatory theology and liturgical practice. The theological discussions had important practical and cultic implications. One the other hand -- and in contrast with the most of earlier works - the study seeks to treat with equal seriousness the wider societal and political aspects of the controversy. Hovda shows how deeply embedded the Eucharist was within broader discourses of culture, society and politics. Far from being just an abstruse ecclesiastical matter, it was a question of great sociopolitical interest and potency. The Eucharist served both as the prime symbol of Christian unity, as well as a confessional border stone between rivaling groups. Other important aspects of this wider analysis are tensions between the ordained ministry and the city council regarding authority, internal social tensions within the city, as well as the strategic interests of the city in its relations to the Polish crown, the Hanseatic league and the emerging new trading powers, among others.Through a close study of one particular controversy, light is cast on a variety of issues with relevance to the broader field of Reformation studies, especially concerning the centrality of the Eucharist.
£106.56
John Blake Publishing Ltd A History of Treason: The bloody history of Britain through the stories of its most notorious traitors
The bloody history of Britain through the stories of its most notorious traitorsA History of Treason details British history from 1352 to 1946, covering major historical moments in a fascinating and innovative way, using the history of high treason and deception as its theme.Appealing to a range of audiences, it covers more than 650 years of momentous history through the use of both famous and lesser known events which shaped Britain. Using original documents and detailed research undertaken by The National Archives' record specialists, it will cover moments in history which led to fundamental changes in eras. It will also include unique discoveries from these archives, uncovering mysteries and stories of how dealing with treason have brought about the changes which have influenced and shaped Britain throughout the centuries. Among these are:the trial and execution of Anne Boleyn on the orders of her husband, Henry VIIIseveral major acts of sedition, including the Gunpowder Plot and the revolution plotted in the Cato Street conspiracythe evidence brought against Sir Roger Casement, executed at Pentonville and his remains later exhumed and given a state funeral in Irelandthe trial and execution of the William Joyce who, as 'Lord Haw-Haw', broadcast Nazi propaganda from Berlin during the Second World WarThe book covers many stories that explore the nature of treason and how the crown and state reacted to it - from the introduction of the Treason Act in 1352 right through to the twentieth century.Written by experts from among the historians at the National Archives, the book is copiously illustrated with images from the unrivalled collections of The National Archives.
£22.50
Europa Editions (UK) Ltd Cathedral
***LONGLISTED: THE HWA GOLD CROWN 2021*** ***A Sunday Times BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021: "An ambitious, epic debut."*** ***A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021*** A Times BOOK OF THE MONTH: "Beautifully written and profoundly insightful." “A memorable tapestry of politics, religion and conflicting human desires.” —The Sunday Times “Cathedral is a masterpiece, one of the best historical novels I’ve read in a long time. Spellbinding and so evocative of place and time. A triumph.”—Dan Jones "Fascinating, fun, and gripping to the very end."—Roddy Doyle A sweeping story about obsession, mysticism, art, and earthly desire. At the centre of this story, is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 12th and 13th centuries in the fictional town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the bishop to his treasurer to local merchants and lowly stonecutters, everyone, even the town’s Jewish denizens, is implicated and affected by the slow rise of Hagenburg’s Cathedral, which in no way enforces morality or charity. Around this narrative core, Ben Hopkins has constructed his own monumental edifice, a choral novel that is rich with the vicissitudes of mercantilism, politics, religion, and human enterprise. Ambitious, immersive, a remarkable feat of imagination, Cathedral deftly combines historical fiction, the literary novel of ideas, and a tale of adventure and intrigue. Fans of authors like Umberto Eco, Elif Shafak, Hilary Mantel, Ken Follett and Jose Saramago will delight at the atmosphere, the beautiful prose, and the vivid characters of Ben Hopkins’s Cathedral.
£8.99
Vintage Publishing One by One: The breath-taking thriller from the queen of the modern-day murder mystery
'Will hold you captive until the brilliant ending' Shari Lapena, author of Someone We Know **THE UNMISSABLE THRILLER FROM THE QUEEN OF THE MODERN-DAY MURDER MYSTERY** Snow is falling in the exclusive alpine ski resort of Saint Antoine, as the shareholders and directors of Snoop, the hottest new music app, gather for a make or break corporate retreat to decide the future of the company. At stake is a billion-dollar dot com buyout that could make them all millionaires, or leave some of them out in the cold. The clock is ticking on the offer, and with the group irrevocably split, tensions are running high. When an avalanche cuts the chalet off from help, and one board member goes missing in the snow, the group is forced to ask - would someone resort to murder, to get what they want? _________________________ PRAISE FOR RUTH WARE'S ADDICTIVE THRILLERS: 'Atmospheric and eerie with Agatha Christie vibes' Prima 'Ruth Ware just gets better and better' Lisa Jewell, author of The People Upstairs 'A dark tale by one of the best thriller writers around' Independent'The sense of dread deepens as the snow falls in Ruth Ware's tensely plotted and deliciously cast alpine thriller' Louise Candlish, bestselling author of Our House 'A real spine-chiller that confirms Ruth Ware as the true heir to Christie's crown' Erin Kelly, bestselling author of He Said, She Said _________________________ READERS LOVE ONE BY ONE: 'I devoured this in a day...eerie and creepy' ***** 'Terrifying and captivating' ***** 'Had me on the edge of my seat' ***** 'Utterly brilliant' ***** 'Clever, chilling, addictive...a must-read!' ***** 'Strong Agatha Christie vibes' *****
£14.30
Duke University Press Shaky Colonialism: The 1746 Earthquake-Tsunami in Lima, Peru, and Its Long Aftermath
Contemporary natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina are quickly followed by disagreements about whether and how communities should be rebuilt, whether political leaders represent the community’s best interests, and whether the devastation could have been prevented. Shaky Colonialism demonstrates that many of the same issues animated the aftermath of disasters more than 250 years ago. On October 28, 1746, a massive earthquake ravaged Lima, a bustling city of 50,000, capital of the Peruvian Viceroyalty, and the heart of Spain’s territories in South America. Half an hour later, a tsunami destroyed the nearby port of Callao. The earthquake-tsunami demolished churches and major buildings, damaged food and water supplies, and suspended normal social codes, throwing people of different social classes together and prompting widespread chaos. In Shaky Colonialism, Charles F. Walker examines reactions to the catastrophe, the Viceroy’s plans to rebuild the city, and the opposition he encountered from the Church, the Spanish Crown, and Lima’s multiracial population.Through his ambitious rebuilding plan, the Viceroy sought to assert the power of the colonial state over the Church, the upper classes, and other groups. Agreeing with most inhabitants of the fervently Catholic city that the earthquake-tsunami was a manifestation of God’s wrath for Lima’s decadent ways, he hoped to reign in the city’s baroque excesses and to tame the city’s notoriously independent women. To his great surprise, almost everyone objected to his plan, sparking widespread debate about political power and urbanism. Illuminating the shaky foundations of Spanish control in Lima, Walker describes the latent conflicts—about class, race, gender, religion, and the very definition of an ordered society—brought to the fore by the earthquake-tsunami of 1746.
£23.99
Cornell University Press Beggars, Iconoclasts, and Civic Patriots: The Political Culture of the Dutch Revolt
The Dutch Revolt has long been hailed as the triumph of political freedom over monarchical tyranny. In 1781, John Adams observed that the American Revolution was its "transcript." Known for its many protagonists—King Philip II, the Duke of Alba, the counts of Egmont and Hornes, radical Calvinists, obstreperous townspeople, and William of Orange—the Dutch Revolt brought into relief conflicts among civic freedoms, religious dissent, representative institutions, and royal authority. Drawing on a vast array of sources-including archival documents, political and religious pamphlets, ballads, chronicles and letters, and a rich store of popular prints-Peter Arnade gives us a new history of the core years of the revolt between 1566 and 1585, showing how the act of rebellion forged a political identity through ritual, symbol, and public action. In Beggars, Iconoclasts, and Civic Patriots, Arnade focuses on the political culture that took shape during the Revolt, a culture that itself fueled decades of turmoil. He sees the pulse of the Revolt in its public dramatization-the acts, words, and cultural representations that were its "daily bread and popular voice." The violent wave of radical iconoclasm that swept the southern Netherlands in 1566 is the book's pivot, setting the stage for the Duke of Alba's brutal effort to restore the authority of the Spanish crown. Arnade details the sieges and violent sacks of Dutch cities by the Army of Flanders, and the response of Dutch rebels, who touted defiant cities as the seats and guarantors of unassailable rights and freedoms. This civic patriotism hailed William of Orange as father of the fatherland, his apotheosis hearkening back to late medieval princely ritual even as it invoked new republican imagery.
£29.99
Little, Brown Book Group Towers Of Midnight: Book 13 of the Wheel of Time (Now a major TV series)
Now a major TV series on Prime Video The thirteenth novel in the Wheel of Time series - one of the most influential and popular fantasy epics ever published.The Last Battle has started. The seals on the Dark One's prison are crumbling. The Pattern itself is unravelling, and the armies of the Shadow have begun to spill out of the Blight.Perrin Aybara is haunted by spectres from his past. To prevail, he must find a way to master the wolf within him or lose himself to it for ever.Meanwhile, Matrim Cauthon prepares for the most difficult challenge of his life. The Tower of Ghenjei awaits, and its secrets will reveal the fate of a friend long lost.The end draws near. It's time to roll the dice.'Epic in every sense' Sunday Times'With the Wheel of Time, Jordan has come to dominate the world that Tolkien began to reveal' New York Times'[The] huge ambitious Wheel of Time series helped redefine the genre' George R. R. Martin'A fantasy phenomenon' SFXThe Wheel of Time series:Book 1: The Eye of the WorldBook 2: The Great HuntBook 3: The Dragon RebornBook 4: The Shadow RisingBook 5: The Fires of HeavenBook 6: Lord of ChaosBook 7: A Crown of SwordsBook 8: The Path of DaggersBook 9: Winter's HeartBook 10: Crossroads of TwilightBook 11: Knife of DreamsBook 12: The Gathering StormBook 13: Towers of MidnightBook 14: A Memory of LightPrequel: New SpringLook out for the companion book: The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time
£10.99
HarperCollins Publishers The Black Ridge: Amongst the Cuillin of Skye
‘Will undoubtedly become a classic narrative of this scenically magnificent, legend-rich and geologically unique part of Scotland’ Cameron McNeish, The Herald Rising a kilometre out of the storm-scoured waters around Scotland’s Isle of Skye is a dark battlement of pinnacles and ridgelines: the Cuillin. Plagued by ferocious weather and built from rock that tears skin and confounds compasses, a crossing of the Cuillin is the toughest mountaineering expedition in the British Isles. But the traverse is only part of its lure. Hewn from the innards of an ancient volcano, this mountain range stands like a crown on an island drenched in intrigue. While nineteenth-century climbers flocked to the Alps, the ridge lay untrodden and unyielding. When a generation of mountaineers did come, they found a remarkable prize: the last peaks of Britain to be climbed – peaks that would be named after those who climbed them. Along the way, many others, from artists and poets to mystics and wanderers, have been lured by the Cuillin’s haunting beauty and magic. Those who have been seduced by the deadly magic of these mountains attest to the complexity of humans’ relationship with the intrigue of our wildest, most dangerous places. The Black Ridge is a journey through the history and into the heights of the Cuillin of Skye – from the ridge’s violent birth to the tales of its pioneers, its thrills, its myths and its monsters. From a night spent in a cave beneath its highest peak to the ascent of its most infamous pinnacle, this is an adventure on foot through all seasons across the most mesmerising mountain range in Britain.
£18.00
DruckVerlag Kettler From Granada to Berlin: The Alhambra Cupola
This book is the story of an extraordinary survivor from the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain: the Alhambra cupola, now in the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin. The cupola, a ceiling crafted from carved and painted wood, was made to crown an exquisite mirador in one of the earliest palace buildings of the Alhambra. The book is the cupola’s biography from its medieval construction to its imminent redisplay in Berlin. It traces the long history of the Alhambra through the prism of the cupola, from the Muslim craftsmen who built it, to its adaptation by the Christian conquerors after the fall of Granada in 1492, to its creation as a heritage site. The cupola was sketched by artists from across Europe, before it was dismantled by a German financier and taken to Berlin in the 19th century. It witnessed the dramatic events of the 20th century in Germany and was eventually bought by the Museum in 1978. In recent decades, the new visibility of the cupola to the wider public has prompted questions about the object and its movement from Granada to Berlin. Its removal from the Alhambra and the complex reasons behind this loss are central to this biography. Setting the cupola within the wider context of Islamic heritage, it considers the role of collecting practices in the transformation of living monuments into heritage sites in the 20th century. This book presents a focused study of this unique object that cuts across academic disciplines and geographic boundaries to reveal a new perspective on the legacy of Islamic art in Europe and its continuing relevance today.
£34.20
Rowman & Littlefield Nature Guide to Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks
Glacier National Park, known as the Crown of the Continent, is a stunningly beautiful mountain landscape adorned with glaciers and snowfields. Combined with its sister park, Waterton Lakes Park in southern Alberta, the two become Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, the first of its kind in the world. These wild places are the realm of the grizzly and the mountain goat, along with the diminutive pika and delicate, yet exceptionally hardy, wildflowers that put on a dazzling display in the short season between the months of snow. As a result, it’s not surprising that Glacier and Waterton are some of the most-loved parks in the National Park system. In 2017, Glacier broke attendance records welcoming over 3.3 million visitors, and with another record-breaking start to the 2018 (May surpassed the previous record in 2016 with over 195,000 people), it appears these numbers are trending consistently upward. Last July, Glacier even surpassed Yellowstone’s July visitation with over 1 million guests passing through its gates. And the much smaller Waterton receives over a half-million visitors each season. Visitors to Glacier and Waterton have a lot of questions, and there isn’t a ranger around every corner to answer them. The Nature Guide to Glacier and Waterton National Parks will be their handy resource to what they want to know, whether they want to identify the beautiful butterfly flitting through their campsite, or how to tell the difference between a black bear and grizzly. As with the other titles in the series, the Nature Guide to Glacier and Waterton will allow readers to quickly and easily understand the unique residents and features of the park.
£14.99
Headline Publishing Group Devil (Leopards of Normandy 1): A vivid historical blockbuster of power, intrigue and action
**From the co-author of the No.1 bestselling Wilbur Smith novel, WAR CRY**The fate of England hangs in the balance of a fight between brothers...In DEVIL, David Churchill writes with the immediacy of Conn Iggulden, the epic ambition of Bernard Cornwell and the plotting of CJ Sansom. The Leopards of Normandy trilogy tells the story of William the Conqueror in all its wild, intoxicating, unfailingly dramatic glory.The noble families of Europe are tearing themselves apart in their lust for power and wealth.Emma, Queen of England, is in agony over the succession to her husband Canute's throne ... while her brother, the Duke of Normandy's sons battle in the wake of his death.Robert, the younger son, has been cheated of Normandy's mightiest castle and sets out to take it by force. He emerges from a bloody siege victorious and in love with a beautiful - and pregnant - peasant girl.Robert's child will be mocked as William the bastard. But we have another name for him... Conqueror.David Churchill paints a world seething with rivalry and intrigue, where assassins are never short of work. The fight for the Royal Crown of England continues in the second and third books of the Leopards of Normandy trilogy, DUKE and CONQUEROR.What readers are saying about DEVIL:'This is a most remarkable book, full of wonderful storytelling and historical details. Absolutely outstanding, immaculate and thrilling' 'An exciting and well-told story, backed up by first class research, an extreme attention to detail and strong characterisation which also fits with the historical record. I thoroughly enjoyed it from cover to cover'
£9.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC A Winter War
SHORTLISTED FOR THE HISTORICAL WRITERS' ASSOCIATION GOLD CROWN AWARD 2022. A disgraced warrior must navigate a course between honour and shame, his people and the Roman Empire, in the first of a trilogy set in the second century AD from the author of Smile of the Wolf. AD173. The Danube has frozen. On its far banks gather the clans of Sarmatia. Winter-starved, life ebbing away on a barren plain of ice and snow, to survive they must cross the river's frozen waters. There's just one thing in their way. Across the ice lies the Roman Empire, and deployed in front of them, one of its legions. The Sarmatians are proud, cast as if from the ice itself. After decades of warfare they are the only tribe still fighting the Romans. They have broken legions in battle before. They will do so again. They charge... Sarmatian warrior Kai awakes on a bloodied battlefield, his only company the dead. The disgrace of his defeat compounded by his survival, Kai must now navigate a course between honour and shame, his people and the Empire, for Rome hasn't finished with Kai or the Sarmatians yet. Reviews for Tim Leach: 'Roman military adventure at its best. Ranks with the best historical fiction available today.' Simon Turney 'The characters feel rounded and real, and the Sarmatians' attempts to keep their world alive are heartbreaking.' The Times 'Tim Leach writes beautifully. Lyrical and thoughtful.' For Winter Nights 'Recommended.' Historical Novel Society 'Magnificent.' Historia 'A poetic, absorbing narrative.' Sunday Times 'Brilliantly atmospheric, utterly compelling and beautifully written.' Caroline Lea 'The storytelling is rich with imagery. It deserves huge success.' David Gilman
£8.99
John Murray Press Blood and Oil: Mohammed bin Salman's Ruthless Quest for Global Power: 'The Explosive New Book'
'If you've ever wondered what would happen if limitless money met limitless power, wonder no longer, it's all here ... Terrifying, disturbing and ghastly' Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland'Explosive' The Times'[A] Crisp page-turner of a book teeming with telling detail ... Splendid' Financial Times'The fascinating and highly entertaining tale ... Fly-on-the-wall reporting and palace intrigue worthy of Machiavelli' John Carreyrou, author of Bad BloodLonglisted for the 2020 Financial Times / McKinsey Business Book of the YearBlood and Oil the explosive untold story of how Mohammed bin Salman and his entourage grabbed power in the Middle East and acquired a network of Western allies - including well-known US bankers, Hollywood figures, and politicians - all eager to help the charming and crafty crown prince.Through astonishing interviews with powerful insiders, Blood and Oil tells how MBS's cabal played the Saudi economy and capitalised on the omnipotence of feudal power while effectively stamping out dissent, before allegations of his extreme brutality and excess began to slip out. A story of breathtaking dealings that range from Riyadh to London, Paris to America, this is a thrilling and brutal investigation into extreme wealth, one of the world's most decisive and dangerous new leaders, and the bid for Saudi transformation that is reverberating around the world.'This is as close to the truth, to the real story of the corruption, vulgarities, horrors, and lies of the Kingdom and its current despot as we are likely to get. It also can be read as a Shakespearean story of utter greed' Seymour Hersh, author of Chain of Command
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond
‘Riveting. This highly readable and entertaining book ... finally sets the record straight on the history of the Koh-i-Noor’ Tarquin Hall, Sunday Times ‘Dynamic, original and supremely readable’ Maya Jasanoff, Guardian The first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i-Noor, arguably the most celebrated and mythologised jewel in the world. On 29 March 1849, the ten-year-old maharaja of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the centre of the great fort in Lahore. There, in a public ceremony, the frightened but dignified child handed over great swathes of the richest country in India in a formal Act of Submission to a private corporation, the East India Company. He was also compelled to hand over to the British monarch, Queen Victoria, perhaps the single most valuable object on the subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i-Noor diamond. The Mountain of Light. The history of the Koh-i-Noor may have been one woven together from gossip of Delhi bazaars, but it was to become the accepted version. Only now is it finally challenged, freeing the diamond from the fog of mythology that has clung to it for so long. The resulting history is one of greed, murder, torture, colonialism and appropriation told through an impressive slice of south and central Asian history. It ends with the jewel in its current controversial setting: in the crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, which was deemed too contentious to be used by Camilla, the Queen Consort, in King Charles’s coronation. Masterly, powerful and erudite, this is history at its most compelling and invigorating.
£14.99
Vintage Publishing One by One: The breath-taking thriller from the queen of the modern-day murder mystery
'Will hold you captive until the brilliant ending' Shari Lapena, author of Someone We Know **THE UNMISSABLE THRILLER FROM THE QUEEN OF THE MODERN-DAY MURDER MYSTERY** Snow is falling in the exclusive alpine ski resort of Saint Antoine, as the shareholders and directors of Snoop, the hottest new music app, gather for a make or break corporate retreat to decide the future of the company. At stake is a billion-dollar dot com buyout that could make them all millionaires, or leave some of them out in the cold. The clock is ticking on the offer, and with the group irrevocably split, tensions are running high. When an avalanche cuts the chalet off from help, and one board member goes missing in the snow, the group is forced to ask - would someone resort to murder, to get what they want? _________________________ PRAISE FOR RUTH WARE'S ADDICTIVE THRILLERS: 'Atmospheric and eerie with Agatha Christie vibes' Prima 'Ruth Ware just gets better and better' Lisa Jewell, author of The People Upstairs 'A dark tale by one of the best thriller writers around' Independent'The sense of dread deepens as the snow falls in Ruth Ware's tensely plotted and deliciously cast alpine thriller' Louise Candlish, bestselling author of Our House 'A real spine-chiller that confirms Ruth Ware as the true heir to Christie's crown' Erin Kelly, bestselling author of He Said, She Said _________________________ READERS LOVE ONE BY ONE: 'I devoured this in a day...eerie and creepy' ***** 'Terrifying and captivating' ***** 'Had me on the edge of my seat' ***** 'Utterly brilliant' ***** 'Clever, chilling, addictive...a must-read!' ***** 'Strong Agatha Christie vibes' *****
£9.04
Little, Brown Book Group Crossroads Of Twilight: Book 10 of the Wheel of Time (Now a major TV series)
Now a major TV series on Prime Video The tenth novel in the Wheel of Time series - one of the most influential and popular fantasy epics ever published.Fleeing from Ebou Dar with the kidnapped Daughter of the Nine Moons, Mat Cauthon learns that he can neither keep her nor let her go, for both the Shadow and the might of the Seanchan empire are now in deadly pursuit. At Tar Valon, Egwene al'Vere lays siege to the White Tower. She must win quickly, with as little bloodshed as possible, for unless the Aes Sedai are reunited only the male Asha'man will remain to defend the world against the Dark One. Meanwhile, Rand al'Thor must gamble again, with himself at stake - not knowing which of his allies are really enemies.'Epic in every sense' Sunday Times'With the Wheel of Time, Jordan has come to dominate the world that Tolkien began to reveal' New York Times'[The] huge ambitious Wheel of Time series helped redefine the genre' George R. R. Martin'A fantasy phenomenon' SFXThe Wheel of Time series:Book 1: The Eye of the WorldBook 2: The Great HuntBook 3: The Dragon RebornBook 4: The Shadow RisingBook 5: The Fires of HeavenBook 6: Lord of ChaosBook 7: A Crown of SwordsBook 8: The Path of DaggersBook 9: Winter's HeartBook 10: Crossroads of TwilightBook 11: Knife of DreamsBook 12: The Gathering StormBook 13: Towers of MidnightBook 14: A Memory of LightPrequel: New SpringLook out for the companion book: The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time
£10.99
Little, Brown Book Group The Shadow Rising: Book 4 of the Wheel of Time (Now a major TV series)
Now a major TV series on Prime Video The fourth novel in the Wheel of Time series - one of the most influential and popular fantasy epics ever published.The Stone of Tear, invulnerable fortress of legend, has fallen. The Children of the Dragon have risen to the call of prophecy and march to the aid of the Light. Callandor, the Sword That Is Not a Sword, is held by Rand al'Thor, the man proclaimed as the Dragon Reborn.But still the shadows lengthen and still the Forsaken grow in strength. If he is to fight them, Rand must master the male half of the True Source, a power corrupted by the Dark One, a power that drives men to madness, a power that may save or damn the world.'Epic in every sense' Sunday Times'With the Wheel of Time, Jordan has come to dominate the world that Tolkien began to reveal' New York Times'[The] huge ambitious Wheel of Time series helped redefine the genre' George R. R. Martin'A fantasy phenomenon' SFXThe Wheel of Time series:Book 1: The Eye of the WorldBook 2: The Great HuntBook 3: The Dragon RebornBook 4: The Shadow RisingBook 5: The Fires of HeavenBook 6: Lord of ChaosBook 7: A Crown of SwordsBook 8: The Path of DaggersBook 9: Winter's HeartBook 10: Crossroads of TwilightBook 11: Knife of DreamsBook 12: The Gathering StormBook 13: Towers of MidnightBook 14: A Memory of LightPrequel: New SpringLook out for the companion book: The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time
£10.99
Little, Brown Book Group The Other Hoffmann Sister
Shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2015, Ben Fergusson's critically acclaimed debut, The Spring of Kasper Meier, was the winner of the Betty Trask Prize 2015 and the HWA 2015 Debut Crown Award. The Other Hoffmann Sister is a gripping, evocative read about two sisters set in pre-WW1 Germany which will appeal to fans of The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry.For Ingrid Hoffmann the story of her sister's disappearance began in their first weeks in Southwest Africa...Ingrid Hoffmann has always felt responsible for her sister Margarete and when their family moves to German Southwest Africa in 1902, her anxieties only increase. The casual racism that pervades the German community, the strange relationship between her parents and Baron von Ketz, from whom they bought their land, and the tension with the local tribes all culminate in tragedy when Baron von Ketz is savagely murdered. Baroness von Ketz and their son, Emil, flee with the Hoffmanns as the Baron's attackers burn down the family's farm.Both families return to Berlin and Ingrid's concerns about Margarete are assuaged when she and Emil von Ketz become engaged on the eve of the First World War. But Margarete disappears on her wedding night at the von Ketz's country house. The mystery of what happened to her sister haunts Ingrid, but as Europe descends into chaos, her hope of discovering the truth becomes ever more distant.After the war, in the midst of the revolution that brings down the Kaiser and wipes out the aristocracy that her family married into, Ingrid returns to the von Ketzes' crumbling estate determined to find out what really happened to her sister.
£9.04
Little, Brown Book Group The Other Hoffmann Sister
Shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2015, Ben Fergusson's critically acclaimed debut, The Spring of Kasper Meier, was the winner of the Betty Trask Prize 2015 and the HWA 2015 Debut Crown Award. The Other Hoffmann Sister is a gripping, evocative read about two sisters set in pre-WW1 Germany which will appeal to fans of The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry.For Ingrid Hoffmann the story of her sister's disappearance began in their first weeks in Southwest Africa...Ingrid Hoffmann has always felt responsible for her sister Margarete and when their family moves to German Southwest Africa in 1902, her anxieties only increase. The casual racism that pervades the German community, the strange relationship between her parents and Baron von Ketz, from whom they bought their land, and the tension with the local tribes all culminate in tragedy when Baron von Ketz is savagely murdered. Baroness von Ketz and their son, Emil, flee with the Hoffmanns as the Baron's attackers burn down the family's farm.Both families return to Berlin and Ingrid's concerns about Margarete are assuaged when she and Emil von Ketz become engaged on the eve of the First World War. But Margarete disappears on her wedding night at the von Ketz's country house. The mystery of what happened to her sister haunts Ingrid, but as Europe descends into chaos, her hope of discovering the truth becomes ever more distant.After the war, in the midst of the revolution that brings down the Kaiser and wipes out the aristocracy that her family married into, Ingrid returns to the von Ketzes' crumbling estate determined to find out what really happened to her sister.
£13.49
Liverpool University Press Infrastructure and the Political Economy of Nation Building in Spain, 1720-2010
This book sets out to explain the very particular characteristics of Spanish infrastructure policy. The capital city of Madrid plays a central role. It not only achieved the status of economic capital of Spain in recent decades but together with its status as administrative and political capital Madrid endowed itself as absolute capital. The challenge is to understand why such development has taken place. First: radial policies in transport infrastructure, which were primarily subordinate to political and administrative objectives, could not be supported by the dynamics of economic activity. For that reason these policies demanded the use of extensive budgetary resources in the form of subsidies and grants that made possible what legislation alone could not achieve. Second: these policies respond to a regular and continuing historical pattern in Spanish politics, which began with the accession to the Spanish Crown of the Bourbon dynasty in the early eighteenth century. The new dynasty tried hard to translate into practice the vision of building a Nation like France, with a Capital like Paris. Third: the enduring strength of this historical pattern allows us to understand why infrastructural policies in Spain today are so unique and different from those of surrounding and comparable countries. Originally published to great acclaim in Spanish and Catalan, Professor Bel places the historical perspective in contemporary viewpoint in discussing the Spanish enthusiasm for high-speed railway, with the prospect of Madrid being connected with all provincial capitals, albeit while freight by train has been neglected; a fully centralised model of airport management that is unmatched among comparable countries; and a mixed (toll and toll-free motorways) and highly asymmetric territorial highway funding model for motorways.
£30.00
Academica Press Kings and Conquistadors: The Birth of Spain’s American Empire
Spain’s American empire began as the serendipitous outgrowth of the search for a shortcut to China. That search derived from two mid-fifteenth-century developments: the Ming Dynasty’s decision to adopt a silver standard for its medium of exchange and the Ottoman Turks’ capture of Constantinople in 1453. China’s great demand for silver and the disruption of the Silk Road drove the need to find alternative access to China. King John II of Portugal sent explorers southward along the coast of Africa and thence to the Orient, but Ferdinand and Isabella sent Christopher Columbus westward, believing he would find a shorter route.A persistent if disorderly push by Spanish conquistadors led to the discovery of previously unknown civilizations, including the empires of the Aztecs and the Incas. The search for a short-cut to China became bound up with the seizure of the riches held by native populations. Although the conquistadors were vastly outnumbered, their superior technology—steel swords, armor, war horses, and firearms—concomitant with diseases that accompanied them, enabled them to subdue native American peoples and confiscate their wealth.The aftermath was fraught with complications and strife. Crown- appointed governors came into conflict with the conquistadors. Distances were great, and the governors tended to place their interests over those of the King. Cortez conquered the Aztecs despite the governor’s attempts to prevent his campaign. Bureaucratic interference bedeviled Francisco Pizzaro’s campaign against the Incas, which, nonetheless, contributed more to the wealth of his country than any other conquistador’s exploits. Ultimately, the vast wealth of the Americas would fuel Spain and its Empire for nearly two centuries.
£150.00
Skyhorse Publishing Dress Me!
A young girl makes her way through a variety of career possibilitiesdancer, doctor, superhero, plumberin a variety of costumes. She can be graceful, creative, brave, caring, silly, and even scary. She can wear braids or glasses, a crown or a beret. No matter what she chooses, her puppy is twirling, painting, and hammering right beside her, often with an accessory of his own. The story is simple and yet suggests infinite, limitless opportunities and the little girl’s right to choose who and what she wants to be. The message is one of exploration, choice, and self-expression. And ultimately another option for the little girl is to be just me.”From the author and illustrator of Paint Me! comes a new story that teaches children to explore and to be open-minded. Featuring simple text but an inspiring story and lovely, detailed illustrations, Dress Me! is sure to charm young readers and parents alike. This book is perfect for early readers and for reading out loud.Sky Pony Press, with our Good Books, Racehorse and Arcade imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of books for young readerspicture books for small children, chapter books, books for middle grade readers, and novels for young adults. Our list includes bestsellers for children who love to play Minecraft; stories told with LEGO bricks; books that teach lessons about tolerance, patience, and the environment, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
£12.07