Search results for ""The History Press""

Taking the terrorist attacks of 9/11 as their starting point, five new essays look at how Jewish culture has changed over the past two decades. Covering music (Vanessa Paloma Elbaz), art (Monica Bohm Duchen), literature (Bryan Cheyette), theatre (Judi Herman) and film (Nathan Abrams), the essays explore the role of confidence in the cultural output of minority communities, and ask whether the trends identified look set to continue over the coming years.Commissioned to mark the twentieth anniversary of Jewish Renaissance magazine, the book includes a foreword by Howard Jacobson and is interspersed with a selection of the best articles from the magazine’s archive, including pieces by the director Mike Leigh, author Linda Grant and sociologist Keith Kahn-Harris.

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Southampton is undergoing something of a regeneration. A vibrant, dynamic and cultural heart to the city is emerging in its cultural quarter, with the imminent completion of a new arts complex bringing arts, heritage, entertainment, events and music to the forefront. Here professional photographer Rosie Windsor has captured the people of Southampton interacting with the old and new environment, with each other, and going about daily life. Set against a backdrop of interesting architecture, these photos depict Southampton at an exciting time in its development.

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This book contains hundreds of ‘strange but true’ stories about Scottish history. Arranged into a miniature history of Scotland, and with bizarre and hilarious true tales for every era, it will delight anyone with an interest in Scotland’s past.

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Audley End House in Essex - or Station 43 as it was known during the Second World War - was used as the principal training school for SOE's Polish Section between 1942 and 1944. Polish agents at the stately home undertook a series of arduous training courses in guerilla warfare before being parachuted into occupied Europe.In 1943, Audley End was placed exclusively under polish control, a situation unique within SOE. The training was tough and the success rate low, but a total of 527 agents passed through Audley End between 1942 and 1944. Ian Valentine has consulted a wide range of primary sources and interviewed Polish instructors and former agents who trained at Audley End to write the definitive account of this Essex country house and the vital but secret part it played in defeating Hitler.He examines the comprehensive training agents at Audley End and describes the work undertaken by Station 43's agents in Europe, set against the background of Polish wartime history. He also covers the vital link with the RAF's Special Duties squadrons, whose crews risked their lives dropping agents into occupied Europe. Station 43 breaks new ground in telling the hitherto until story of Audley End house and its role as a vital SOE training school.

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''The stories are all so very different, some of them being quite compelling and tender featuring an interesting variety of voices and nationalities with a wide range of characters and settings'' - Advolly RichmondA group of botanists in search of rare species dismiss local custom at their peril. Love in all its wildness and wonder is found clinging to crumbling chalk cliffs and growing through cracks on city streets. A scientist takes a radical step to understand her houseplant. A poet remembers her beloved flowers, and the longing for a magnificent tropical garden outlasts death.From tokens of love to neolithic burial gifts, bridal bouquets to seasonal wreaths and healing potions to artistic masterpieces, flowers and plants have a multitude of meanings and a long and complex relationship with us. They brighten our homes and delight us in garden and countryside, convey our emotions and symbolise the stages of our human lives.

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Curious Cotswolds takes the reader on a tour of the area, looking at the history, archaeology and curiosities of the Cotswolds. The author, a former Cotswolds policeman, describes points of interest to be found in the towns, villages and hamlets of the region, looking at Cheltenham and North; Cirencester, Stroud and South; Worcestershire and Warwickshire; and Oxfordshire.This historical guide offers a fascinating insight into the Cotswolds and will delight visitors and residents alike.

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As a person's religious convictions, especially in times past, can be considered fundamental to their character and behaviour, the nature of King Richard III's piety has been the subject of considerable debate. Much of this controversy has focused on the Book of Hours adopted by the king for his own private use following his coronation, and to which certain prayers, including that known as the Prayer of Richard III', were added.In The Hours of Richard III Ricardian experts Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs explore the manuscript and the prayer's text. The manuscript (now preserved in Lambeth Palace Library) was originally produced in London around 1420 and the text shows the preoccupations of a devout man of the fifteenth century, while its decoration showcases the development of London manuscript illumination during that period. Moreover, in this analysis of the manuscript, the authors offer an insight into the personality of Richard III, one of

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Ghosts walk in the open and infidelities are conducted in plain sight. Two teenagers walk along a perfect beach in the anticipation of a first kiss. Time stops for nothing – not even for death. Sometimes time cracks, disrupting a fragile equilibrium. The stories are peopled with locals and incomers, sailors and land dwellers; a diver searches the deep for what she has lost, and forbidden lovers meet in secret places. Throughout, the writers’ words reveal a love of the incomparable Cornish landscape. This bold and striking new anthology showcases Cornwall’s finest contemporary writers, combining established and new voices, including: Philipa Aldous, Cathy Galvin, Anastasia Gammon,Tim Hannigan, Clare Howdle, Adrian Markle, Tim Martindale, Candy Neubert, Felicity Notley, Sarah Perry, S. Reid, Alan Robinson, Rob Magnuson Smith, Katherine Stansfield, Emma Staughton, Sarah Thomas, Emma Timpany,Tom Vowler, Elaine Ruth White.

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The Last Days of Richard III contains a new and uniquely detailed exploration of Richard’s last 150 days. By deliberately avoiding the hindsight knowledge that he will lose the Battle of Bosworth Field, we discover a new Richard: no passive victim, awaiting defeat and death, but a king actively pursuing his own agenda. It also re-examines the aftermath of Bosworth: the treatment of Richard’s body; his burial; and the construction of his tomb. And there is the fascinating story of why, and how, Richard III’s family tree was traced until a relative was found, alive and well, in Canada. Now, with the discovery of Richard’s skeleton at the Greyfrairs Priory in Leicester, England, John Ashdown-Hill explains how his book inspired the dig and completes Richard III’s fascinating story, giving details of how Richard died, and how the DNA link to a living relative of the king allowed the royal body to be identified.

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Crecy, Agincourt, Blenheim, Trafalgar, Waterloo, El Alamein – the names trip off the tongue and resound through our history. Great British military victories, often won against the odds. But what of the defeats and disasters – from our conquest by Roman armies to the fall of Singapore in 1942, described by Churchill as the ‘worst disaster’ in our military history. This is the story of those disasters, and the ones in between. From famous battles like Hastings and Yorktown, to those that are less well-known but had far-reaching consequences, such as Castillon. Others, like the Battle of the Medway in 1667, which were deeply shameful – ‘a dishonour never to be wiped off’ – but had relatively little long term impact. Sometimes, a brilliant retreat helped prevent an even greater calamity, as at Gallipoli and Dunkirk. It is an epic story following British armies and navies across the world to France, Africa, North and South America and the Far East. It is a tale of bungling, miscalculation, unpreparedness and heroism.

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From reports of haunted castles, stately halls, hotels, public houses, Roman forts, stone circles and even England’s deepest lake, to heart-stopping accounts of apparitions, poltergeists and related supernatural phenomena, Ghostly Cumbria investigates twenty of the most haunted locations to be found in the area today. Drawing on historical and contemporary sources, this selection includes a phantom friar said to walk the lanes near Grey Friars Lodge Hotel in Clappersgate; the ghost of Mary, Queen of Scots at Carlisle Castle; a cavalier at Moresby Hall in Whitehaven; and several ghosts at the Kirkstone Pass Inn at Ambleside, including a young boy killed by a coach outside the building, a young woman who died whilst travelling along the road during a snow storm, and a seventeenth-century coachman who lurks around the bar. Illustrated with sixty photographs, together with access details for each location, this book will appeal to all those interested in finding out more about Cumbria’s haunted heritage.

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No-one could have imagined what a revolutionary change the dawning of the railway age would have on the British countryside and its inhabitants. Somerset was no exception: the Great Western Railway, the London and South Western Railway, and the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway operated many services throughout this beautiful county. In the age of steam and in later days these companies gave communities employment and security; their stations, crossing and engine sheds transformed the landscape and their locomotives were objects of admiration. This book aims to give the reader a chance to look back at scenes and locations that were once so common over a wonderful railway network. Stations such as Chard Junction, Milborne Port, Wellow, Chilcompton and Binegar are depicted. Somerset Railways also examines the countless trains that passed by in the age of steam: the Devon Belle and the Pines Express. Enriched by a wealth of photographs of staff from all walks of railway life, this book is a tribute to those railway workers and to the vibrant Somerset railway system that they served.

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Drawing on a wide selection of sources and illustrated with more than sixty photographs, this collection of grisly tales explores the darker side of the Lake District's past. It features the tale of the 'Keswick Imposter', who seduced and bigamously married a young lady of Buttermere before being hanged at Castile for fraud, a story which was the inspiration for Melvyn Bragg's The Maid of Buttermere. Also included is the account of an eighteenth-century gang who repeatedly tried to kidnap a wealthy (but alcoholic) landowner and marry him to a prostitute in order to lay their hands on his fortune. With murders, hangings, kidnap and violence, Murder & Crime in the Lake District is sure to captivate and horrify anyone interested in the criminal history of the area.

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Illustrated with 200 photographs and postcards, many of which have never before been published, this fascinating selection of archive images charts many changes which have taken place in Bodmin during the last 100 years. Images of shops which have ceased trading and buildings that have been demolished feature alongside vistas of great houses, churches, Bodmin Gaol and timeless Bodmin moor. Each image is accompanied by text providing a wealth of historical detail on this area of Cornwall.

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The five Tudor monarchs – Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I – were some of the most influential rulers in British history. This volume explores all aspects of life in the Tudor age, from life at court (and at the grand country estates where Queen Elizabeth paused during her famous ‘progresses’) to the day-to-day activities at the teeming taverns and plague-ridden cities of the Tudor kingdom. With chapters on the people, palaces and pastimes of the age, some amusing secrets of the Tudor medicine cabinet and closet, and stories from some of the most fabulous, eccentric and opulent entertainments of the age, it will delight anyone with an interest in Tudor history – or indeed, in British history as a whole.

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There is nothing ‘little’ about the history of Cornwall! However, this small volume condenses that fascinating, rich history into a collection of stories and facts that will make you marvel at the events the county has witnessed. Discover Henry VIII’s plan to protect the county from invasion from Catholic Europe, the important development of tin mining on the north coast and the rise of seaside resorts all around the county. Take a journey through Cornwall’s historic struggles and celebrations or jump in to the era of your choice to discover the who, what and why of Cornish history.

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Leicestershire & Rutland has charmed visitors for centuries, and this collection of intricate illustrations is a celebration of the region’s unique appeal. Featuring a range of picturesque vistas, from rich countryside to vibrant towns and cities, each stunning scene is full of intriguing detail sure to fire the imagination and make you reach for your colouring pencils. There are absolutely no rules – you can choose any combination of colours you like to bring these images to life. Suitable for children. If you love Leicestershire and Rutland, then you love colouring them in!

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Steeped in legend and mystery, the dramatic coastline of North Cornwall is riddled with stories of hauntings throughout history. The eerie wilds of Bodmin Moor, the haunted historic castles and of course the spirited, rugged coastline all have terrifying tales to tell. Michael Williams has been at the heart of some incredible investigations, and shares here some of the most chilling accounts of hauntings. Including previously unpublished accounts of ghostly activity, this is a treasure trove of original material and re-examined cases. It unravels stories which will send a shiver down the spine of anyone interested in the rarely advertised scary side of North Cornwall.

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Which comes first the root or the leaf? Why are plants green? How fast does grass grow? Too fast for those who hate mowing! When is red and orange better for you than white?; when choosing onions. Why are white and grey plants more visible by moonlight? The answer to these and many more intriguing questions can be found in this authoritative and entertaining book by garden specialist Caroline Holmes. It makes the perfect present for curious gardeners and for anyone intrigued by the secret world of plants.

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