Search results for ""Author Andrew Beattie""
Signal Books Ltd Danube a Cultural History
The Danube is the longest river in western and central Europe. Rising amidst the beautiful wooded hills of Germany s Black Forest, it touches or winds its way through ten countries and four capital cities before emptying into the Black Sea through a vast delta whose silt-filled channels spread across eastern Romania. From earliest times the river has provided a route from Europe to Asia that was followed by armies and traders, while empires, from the Macedonian to the Habsburg, rose and fell along its length. Then, in the middle of the twentieth century, the Danube took on the role of a watery thread that unified a continent divided by the Iron Curtain. In the late 1980s the Iron Curtain lifted but the Danube valley soon became an arena for conflict during the violent break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Now, passing as it does through some of the world s youngest nations, including Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Moldova and Ukraine, the river is a tangible symbol of a new, peaceful and united Europe as well as a vital artery for commercial and leisure shipping. Andrew Beattie explores the turbulent past and vibrant present of the landscape through which the Danube flows, where the enduring legacies of historical regimes from the Romans to the Nazis have all left their mark. HISTORICAL FIGURES: From the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius to Richard the Lionheart, and from Alexander the Great to Napoleon, the position of the Danube at the heart of Europe has led to centuries of war and conflict. LANDSCAPE AND CITIES: From the imperial grandeur of Budapest to the charm of medieval Passau, from grim river ports in Romania to the austere fortress cities of Belgrade and Bratislava, and from the plains of Hungary to the dramatic scenery of the Iron Gates gorge, the Danube flows through a remarkable variety of cities and landscapes. WRITERS AND ARTISTS: From the anonymous author of the Song of the Nibelungs to Patrick Leigh Fermor, and from Albrecht Altdorfer to Johann Strauss the Younger, the beautiful scenery of the Danube valley has provided inspiration for writers, artists and composers through the centuries.
£15.00
Signal Books Ltd The Alps: A Cultural History
The Alps are Europe's highest mountain range; their broad arc stretches right across the centre of the continent, encompassing a wide range of traditions and cultures. In former times the mountains were feared as the realm of wild and dangerous beasts, and the few travellers who ventured over high passes such as the Simplon or the Great St. Bernard expected to encounter tempests and torments of hellish proportions. But over time the Alps became celebrated by writers for their beauty rather than their savagery. In the nineteenth century, inspired in part by the work of poets such as Byron and Shelley, tourists began flocking to the mountains, and with the development of winter sports a hundred years ago the fate of the Alps as one of the great tourist playgrounds of the world was sealed. Andrew Beattie explores the turbulent past and vibrant present of this landscape, where early pioneers of tourism, mountaineering and scientific research, along with the enduring legacies of historical regimes from the Romans to the Nazis, have all left their mark. Historical Figures: From Julius Caesar and Hannibal to Napoleon and William Tell, the position of the Alps at the heart of Europe has led to centuries of war and conflict. Folklore and Tradition: The wildness of the mountains has inspired a unique popular culture, from legendary tales of dragons flying among the peaks to performances of religious passion plays in valley towns. Writers, Artists and Film-Makers: From the Romantic poets to Charles Dickens and Mark Twain; from Turner and Ruskin to the film-maker Leni Riefenstahl; from James Bond to Heidi and The Sound of Music; the beautiful scenery of the Alps has provided the setting for dozens of books, poems, films and paintings through the centuries.
£15.00
Pen & Sword Books Ltd Henry VIII: A History of his Most Important Places and Events
The story of Henry VIII is well known: he is famed throughout the world as the charismatic king of England who married six wives (and executed two of them), who broke with Rome and dissolved England's monasteries, and who grew from a Renaissance prince into a lustful, egotistical and callous tyrant. He is the subject of scholarly and popular biographies and of numerous fictional works, from John Fletcher and William Shakespeare's jointly authored play Henry VIII to contemporary novels, films and TV series. But this book tells the story of Henry VIII in a very different way to any of these: through the places where the events of his life unfolded. From Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London to the site of the Field of the Cloth of Gold near Calais where Henry met the French King Francis I for a week of pageantry in 1520, and from his lavish palaces in London to quieter manor houses in the English countryside which he visited during his annual summer "progress", a whole new light is thrown on this most compelling of historical figures. Whilst some sites associated with Henry are now very ruinous - such as Woking Palace in Surrey, which Henry remodelled into a lavish royal residence but which is now little more than a few tumbledown walls, or Greenwich Palace, where he was born, of which only a few remnants from his era remain - others, most famously Hampton Court, are much more substantial; the book looks at Henry's connections with each site in turn, along with the conditions that today's visitors to the site can expect, beginning with the Thames-side palaces from Greenwich upstream to Hampton Court, before broadening its scope to include properties and sites outside London, in the West and North of England and in Northern France.
£22.50