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In addition to examining crime, the judicial system, and punishment in various societies, the chapters look at the evolution of police systems as societies urbanize and undergo population changes. Together these chapters look at many key questions concerning the modern study of criminal behavior. As such, the volume will be of great interest to researchers and scholars of the history of crime.
Almost two centuries after Napoleon’s death, historians continue to argue about his aims, his achievements and his legacy. In this thoroughly revised and updated new edition, Clive Emsley brings these historiographical debates up-to-date, and broadens his study to include discussion of the cultural and social impact of the Napoleonic era.
This new edition:
offers a succinct summary of Napoleon’s career
examines his impact on France and Europe, as well as including a new chapter on the impact of the Napoleonic adventure on the wider world
considers the relationship between Napoleon and the French Revolution
outlines the difficulties in assessing his career
explores the current debates surrounding Napoleon
contains an expanded selection of primary source documents, ranging from state papers to police reports.
A Chronology, Glossary and Who’s Who of key characters are also provided, making this an indispensable textbook for students of nineteenth-century French and European history.
This book provides a concise introduction to the impact of the French Revolution on Britain and to the ways in which this impact has been assessed by historians.
The book is organised thematically. It begins with a survey of the ideological debate sparked off by the Revolution discussing, in particular, the work of people such as Burke, Paine, Spence and Wollstonecraft. From here it presents an exploration of the Revolution s impact on
* Parliamentary polities
* The growth of radicalism and loyalism
* The way in which French ideas influenced Irish aspirations to generate rebellion
The third main section of the book focuses on the causes and course of Britain s war with Revolutionary France, and on the effects of the war on the home front, most notably the recurrent, serious food shortages.
During the period covered in the book, all the countries of Western Europe were confronted with similar, essentially political challenges. Industrialization and urbanization created new and alarming environments and appeared to foster new and menacing social groups, from the dangerous classes lurking within the unskilled urban working class, to the more tangible organizations created by labor. Socialism and fascism provided the European states with new ideologies and ideologues to confront or to support--and world war, involving mass mobilization on the home as well as the battle fronts, was seen to require a further extension of the role of the state. In a crisis, central government must ensure its command over its forces of coercion and its sources of information--it was then that the police became most openly the executive area of government. As the trend toward central control intensified, so did the trend toward professionalization. By examining the evolution of the police in five societies, the authors provide valuable analyses of the ways police forces differed from one another, the ways in which they approached their tasks, and how they developed their respective self-images. This collection will be of considerable use to scholars and students involved in research on modern European history and criminology.
General Alex Dumas is a man almost unknown today, yet his story is strikingly familiar—because his son, the novelist Alexandre Dumas, used his larger-than-life feats as inspiration for such classics as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.
But, hidden behind General Dumas's swashbuckling adventures was an even more incredible secret: he was the son of a black slave—who rose higher in the white world than any man of his race would before our own time. Born in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), Alex Dumas made his way to Paris, where he rose to command armies at the height of the Revolution—until he met an implacable enemy he could not defeat.
The Black Count is simultaneously a riveting adventure story, a lushly textured evocation of 18th-century France, and a window into the modern world’s first multi-racial society. TIME magazine called The Black Count "one of those quintessentially human stories of strength and courage that sheds light on the historical moment that made it possible." But it is also a heartbreaking story of the enduring bonds of love between a father and son.
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure German princess who became one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history. Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into empress of Russia by sheer determination. For thirty-four years, the government, foreign policy, cultural development, and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, foreign wars, and the tidal wave of political change and violence churned up by the French Revolution. Catherine’s family, friends, ministers, generals, lovers, and enemies—all are here, vividly brought to life. History offers few stories richer than that of Catherine the Great. In this book, an eternally fascinating woman is returned to life.
“[A] compelling portrait not just of a Russian titan, but also of a flesh-and-blood woman.”—Newsweek
“An absorbing, satisfying biography.”—Los Angeles Times
“Juicy and suspenseful.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A great life, indeed, and irresistibly told.”—Salon
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The New York Times • The Washington Post • USA Today • The Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • Newsweek/The Daily Beast • Salon • Vogue • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Providence Journal • Washington Examiner • South Florida Sun-Sentinel • BookPage • Bookreporter • Publishers Weekly
BONUS: This edition contains a Catherine the Great reader's guide.
--The Philadelphia Inquirer
At his death in 1547, King Henry VIII left four heirs to the English throne: his only son, the nine-year-old Prince Edward; the Lady Mary, the adult daughter of his first wife Katherine of Aragon; the Lady Elizabeth, the teenage daughter of his second wife Anne Boleyn; and his young great-niece, the Lady Jane Grey. In this riveting account Alison Weir paints a unique portrait of these extraordinary rulers, examining their intricate relationships to each other and to history. She traces the tumult that followed Henry's death, from the brief intrigue-filled reigns of the boy king Edward VI and the fragile Lady Jane Grey, to the savagery of "Bloody Mary," and finally the accession of the politically adroit Elizabeth I.
As always, Weir offers a fresh perspective on a period that has spawned many of the most enduring myths in English history, combining the best of the historian's and the biographer's art.
"Like anthropology, history and biography can demonstrate unfamiliar ways of feeling and being. Alison Weir's sympathetic collective biography, The Children of Henry VIII does just that, reminding us that human nature has changed--and for the better. . . . Weir imparts movement and coherence while re-creating the suspense her characters endured and the suffering they inflicted."
--The New York Times Book Review
From the Trade Paperback edition.
George Washington – a figure synonymous with American history. His image is known worldwide, marked on American currency, postage stamps – even a state is named after him. George Washington in an Hour explores the man beneath the symbol. This is the essential chronicle of Washington’s life – his rise from middle class Virginian upbringing to America’s first President, elected unanimously twice.
Explore Washington’s legacy – from securing Independence, to his instrumental role in writing and adopting the American constitution. George Washington in an Hour covers Washington’s redefinition of greatness, relinquishing power not once but twice – at the end of Revolution and his second term in Presidency. Learn why Washington is still considered one of the most influential people in history, and how his impact shaped the world in this engaging overview of his life.
Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour...
Morris started life in the colonies as an apprentice in a counting house. By the time of the Revolution he was a rich man, a commercial and social leader in Philadelphia. He organized a clandestine trading network to arm the American rebels, joined the Second Continental Congress, and financed George Washington’s two crucial victories—Valley Forge and the culminating battle at Yorktown that defeated Cornwallis and ended the war.
The leader of a faction that included Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Washington, Morris ran the executive branches of the revolutionary government for years. He was a man of prodigious energy and adroit management skills and was the most successful businessman on the continent. He laid the foundation for public credit and free capital markets that helped make America a global economic leader. But he incurred powerful enemies who considered his wealth and influence a danger to public "virtue" in a democratic society.
After public service, he gambled on land speculations that went bad, and landed in debtors prison, where George Washington, his loyal friend, visited him.
This once wealthy and powerful man ended his life in modest circumstances, but Rappleye restores his place as a patriot and an immensely important founding father.
Reprinted here in its entirety, this fascinating history abounds in tales of flamboyant outlaws and their bloody deeds: Captain Edward Teach, alias Blackbeard; Captain William Kidd, whose trial and execution created a sensation throughout London and the world; Bartholomew Roberts, one of the most successful pirates of the era, whose crews captured an estimated 400 prizes in three years; Mary Read and Anne Bonny, who disguised themselves as men to sail under the Jolly Roger with the ill-fated Captain John Rackham; and many more.
An engrossing blend of fact and fiction — incorporating Defoe's celebrated flair for journalistic detail — these lively tales of seafaring rogues and rascals and their ill-gotten gains will captivate armchair sailors, maritime enthusiasts and any lover of adventure on the high seas. This unique work has been edited by noted scholar Manuel Schonhorn, who has also supplied a provocative Postscript to the Dover Edition offering insights into the vast popularity of this subject in today's theater, movies, TV specials, magazine articles, lavish books, and maritime exhibitions. In an added "Note on the Author and the Text," Professor Schonhorn also examines the arguments for and against Defoe's very authorship of this important book.
Along with French General Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau, George Washington made an astonishing march through New Jersey and trapped British General Charles Cornwallis and his forces in Yorktown, Virginia, where they unleashed a tremendous artillery assault, with the support of the French navy. But victory was never certain - both sides made a series of dramatic attacks and counterattacks.
Using the diaries and letters of participants in the siege, Fleming creates a moving and exciting depiction of the days in October 1781 that ended the American Revolution and changed the world.
Three times, beginning in 1690, warfare arose between New France and New England. Settlements were destroyed, and armies clashed, yet nothing was settled. Each country regarded the Ohio Valley as its own. A small skirmish in 1754 touched off a war that spread to Europe, then to Africa, Asia, and even to islands in the Atlantic and Pacific. The fate of North America hung in the balance. This conflict, the Great War for the Empire, may well be called the first of the world wars.
Here, award-winning historian Francis Russell brings to life the vast panorama that formed the background for this struggle in which the English redcoats fought side by side with American colonists against French soldiers and their Indian allies.
The summer months of 1776 witnessed the most consequential events in the story of our country’s founding. While the thirteen colonies came together and agreed to secede from the British Empire, the British were dispatching the largest armada ever to cross the Atlantic to crush the rebellion in the cradle. The Continental Congress and the Continental Army were forced to make decisions on the run, improvising as history congealed around them. In a brilliant and seamless narrative, Ellis meticulously examines the most influential figures in this propitious moment, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Britain’s Admiral Lord Richard and General William Howe. He weaves together the political and military experiences as two sides of a single story, and shows how events on one front influenced outcomes on the other.
Revolutionary Summer tells an old story in a new way, with a freshness at once colorful and compelling.
Anderson skillfully reveals the clash of inherited perceptions the war created when it gave thousands of American colonists their first experience of real Englishmen and introduced them to the British cultural and class system. We see colonists who assumed that they were partners in the empire encountering British officers who regarded them as subordinates and who treated them accordingly. This laid the groundwork in shared experience for a common view of the world, of the empire, and of the men who had once been their masters. Thus, Anderson shows, the war taught George Washington and other provincials profound emotional lessons, as well as giving them practical instruction in how to be soldiers.
Depicting the subsequent British efforts to reform the empire and American resistance — the riots of the Stamp Act crisis and the nearly simultaneous pan-Indian insurrection called Pontiac's Rebellion — as postwar developments rather than as an anticipation of the national independence that no one knew lay ahead (or even desired), Anderson re-creates the perspectives through which contemporaries saw events unfold while they tried to preserve imperial relationships.
Interweaving stories of kings and imperial officers with those of Indians, traders, and the diverse colonial peoples, Anderson brings alive a chapter of our history that was shaped as much by individual choices and actions as by social, economic, and political forces.
One of the sisters joined a rebel army, was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, and escaped in disguise in 1746. Her younger brother was a close friend of Adam Smith and David Hume. Another brother was fluent in Persian and Bengali, and married to a celebrated poet. He was the owner of a slave known only as "Bell or Belinda," who journeyed from Calcutta to Virginia, was accused in Scotland of infanticide, and was the last person judged to be a slave by a court in the British isles. In Grenada, India, Jamaica, and Florida, the Johnstones embodied the connections between European, American, and Asian empires. Their family history offers insights into a time when distinctions between the public and private, home and overseas, and slavery and servitude were in constant flux.
Based on multiple archives, documents, and letters, The Inner Life of Empires looks at one family's complex story to describe the origins of the modern political, economic, and intellectual world.
"No novelist has made his creations live for us more thoroughly than Carlyle has made the men of the French Revolution," observed George Eliot. In his company, the scenes of the Revolution are plainly visible, and the pages of this book offer a walk through the streets of eighteenth-century Paris with a well-informed guide. This abridged edition represents the best introduction to Carlyle's masterpiece for students and history buffs.
One of our most renowned and brilliant historians takes a fresh look at the revolutionary intellectual movement that laid the foundation for the modern world.
Liberty and equality. Human rights. Freedom of thought and expression. Belief in reason and progress. The value of scientific inquiry. These are just some of the ideas that were conceived and developed during the Enlightenment, and which changed forever the intellectual landscape of the Western world. Spanning hundreds of years of history, Anthony Pagden traces the origins of this seminal movement, showing how Enlightenment concepts directly influenced modern culture, making possible a secular, tolerant, and, above all, cosmopolitan world.
Everyone can agree on its impact. But in the end, just what was Enlightenment? A cohesive philosophical project? A discrete time period in the life of the mind when the superstitions of the past were overthrown and reason and equality came to the fore? Or an open-ended intellectual process, a way of looking at the world and the human condition, that continued long after the eighteenth century ended? To address these questions, Pagden introduces us to some of the unforgettable characters who defined the Enlightenment, including David Hume, the Scottish skeptic who advanced the idea of a universal “science of man”; François-Marie Arouet, better known to the world as Voltaire, the acerbic novelist and social critic who challenged the authority of the Catholic Church; and Immanuel Kant, the reclusive German philosopher for whom the triumph of a cosmopolitan world represented the final stage in mankind’s evolution. Comprehensive in his analysis of this heterogeneous group of scholars and their lasting impact on the world, Pagden argues that Enlightenment ideas go beyond the “empire of reason” to involve the full recognition of the emotional ties that bind all human beings together. The “human science” developed by these eminent thinkers led to a universalizing vision of humanity, a bid to dissolve the barriers past generations had attempted to erect between the different cultures of the world.
A clear and compelling explanation of the philosophical underpinnings of the modern world, The Enlightenment is a scintillating portrait of a period, a critical moment in history, and a revolution in thought that continues to this day.
Praise for The Enlightenment
“Sweeping . . . Like being guided through a vast ballroom of rotating strangers by a confiding insider.”—The Washington Post
“Fascinating.”—The Telegraph (London)
“A political tract for our time.”—The Wall Street Journal
“For those who recognize the names Hegel, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Voltaire, and Diderot but are unfamiliar with their thought, [Anthony] Padgen provides a fantastic introduction, explaining the driving philosophies of the period and placing their proponents in context. . . . Padgen’s belief that the Enlightenment ‘made it possible for us to think . . . beyond the narrow worlds into which we are born’ is clearly and cogently presented.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The Enlightenment really does still matter, and with a combination of gripping storytelling about colorful characters and lucid explanation of profound ideas, Anthony Pagden shows why.”—Steven Pinker, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Blank Slate
From the Hardcover edition.
Featuring a new afterword by Jeremy Adelman and a foreword by Amartya Sen, this Princeton Classics edition of The Passions and the Interests sheds light on the intricate ideological transformation from which capitalism emerged triumphant, and reaffirms Hirschman's stature as one of our most influential and provocative thinkers.
Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.
Winner of the Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year Award • Winner of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey History Prize • Finalist for the George Washington Book Prize
Over the last decade, award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal has revitalized the study of early America’s marginalized voices. Now, in Independence Lost, she recounts an untold story as rich and significant as that of the Founding Fathers: the history of the Revolutionary Era as experienced by slaves, American Indians, women, and British loyalists living on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
While citizens of the thirteen rebelling colonies came to blows with the British Empire over tariffs and parliamentary representation, the situation on the rest of the continent was even more fraught. In the Gulf of Mexico, Spanish forces clashed with Britain’s strained army to carve up the Gulf Coast, as both sides competed for allegiances with the powerful Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek nations who inhabited the region. Meanwhile, African American slaves had little control over their own lives, but some individuals found opportunities to expand their freedoms during the war.
Independence Lost reveals that individual motives counted as much as the ideals of liberty and freedom the Founders espoused: Independence had a personal as well as national meaning, and the choices made by people living outside the colonies were of critical importance to the war’s outcome. DuVal introduces us to the Mobile slave Petit Jean, who organized militias to fight the British at sea; the Chickasaw diplomat Payamataha, who worked to keep his people out of war; New Orleans merchant Oliver Pollock and his wife, Margaret O’Brien Pollock, who risked their own wealth to organize funds and garner Spanish support for the American Revolution; the half-Scottish-Creek leader Alexander McGillivray, who fought to protect indigenous interests from European imperial encroachment; the Cajun refugee Amand Broussard, who spent a lifetime in conflict with the British; and Scottish loyalists James and Isabella Bruce, whose work on behalf of the British Empire placed them in grave danger. Their lives illuminate the fateful events that took place along the Gulf of Mexico and, in the process, changed the history of North America itself.
Adding new depth and moral complexity, Kathleen DuVal reinvigorates the story of the American Revolution. Independence Lost is a bold work that fully establishes the reputation of a historian who is already regarded as one of her generation’s best.
Praise for Independence Lost
“[An] astonishing story . . . Independence Lost will knock your socks off. To read [this book] is to see that the task of recovering the entire American Revolution has barely begun.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A richly documented and compelling account.”—The Wall Street Journal
“A remarkable, necessary—and entirely new—book about the American Revolution.”—The Daily Beast
“A completely new take on the American Revolution, rife with pathos, double-dealing, and intrigue.”—Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Encounters at the Heart of the World
From the Hardcover edition.
The year 1776 ended with both the Americans and the British stripped of their illusions. Each side had been forced to abandon the myth of invincibility and confront the realities of human nature on and off the battlefield.
For the Americans, it had been a shock to discover that it was easy to persuade people to cheer for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but it was another matter to convince them to make real sacrifices for these ideals. For the British, their goal of achieving proper subordination of America to England was frustrated forever.
Seventeen seventy-six was a tragic year: Americans fighting in the name of liberty persecuted and sometimes killed fellow Americans who chose to remain loyal to the old order. Seventeen seventy-six was a year of heroes: It brought forth the leaders who had the courage to fight for freedom. Seventeen seventy-six was a disgraceful year: Americans revealed a capacity for cowardice, disorganization, and incompetence.
Here, in this masterful book, is the true story of 1776.
Featuring a new foreword by David Armitage, this Princeton Classics edition of The Age of the Democratic Revolution introduces a new generation of readers to this enduring work of political history.
So begins the extraordinary true story at the heart of How to Create the Perfect Wife, prize-winning historian Wendy Moore’s captivating tale of one man’s mission to groom his ideal mate. A few days after he turned twenty-one and inherited a large fortune, Day adopted two young orphans from the Foundling Hospital and, guided by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the principles of the Enlightenment, attempted to teach them to be model wives. After six months he discarded one girl, calling her “invincibly stupid,” and focused his efforts on his remaining charge. He subjected her to a number of cruel trials—including dropping hot wax on her arms and firing pistols at her skirts—to test her resolve but the young woman, perhaps unsurprisingly, eventually rebelled against her domestic slavery. Day had hoped eventually to marry her, but his peculiar experiment inevitably backfired—though not before he had taken his theories about marriage, education, and femininity to shocking extremes.
Stranger than fiction, blending tragedy and farce, How to Create the Perfect Wife is an engrossing tale of the radicalism—and deep contradictions—at the heart of the Enlightenment.
From the Hardcover edition.
Drawing on the work of sociolinguists and others, Burke uses their concept while reserving the right to qualify their theories where the historical record makes this seem appropriate. Like the sociolinguists, Burke in concerned with the way language varies according to who is communicating to whom, on what occasion, in what medium and on what topic. Unlike many sociolinguists, Burke adds a historical dimension, treating language as an inseparable part of social history.
This approach is outlined and justified in the first chapter and then exemplified in the remaining four, which deal with the early modern period. Among the topics discussed are the changing role of Latin, which is shown to be very much alive in the age of its alleged decline; language and identity in Italy, a politically divided region at the time but one where educated elites had a common language; the art of conversation, in other words the advice on speaking in polite company offered in hundreds of treaties of the period; and silence, viewed as an act of communication with a significance which changes over time and varies according to the setting and the persons who are silent.
The Art of Conversation will be of great interest to students and scholars in social and cultural history, linguistics, the sociology of language and the ethnography of communication.
Bringing to life the science and adventure of eighteenth-century plant collecting, The Brother Gardeners is the story of how six men created the modern garden and changed the horticultural world in the process. It is a story of a garden revolution that began in America.
In 1733, colonial farmer John Bartram shipped two boxes of precious American plants and seeds to Peter Collinson in London. Around these men formed the nucleus of a botany movement, which included famous Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus; Philip Miller, bestselling author of The Gardeners Dictionary; and Joseph Banks and David Solander, two botanist explorers, who scoured the globe for plant life aboard Captain Cook’s Endeavor. As they cultivated exotic blooms from around the world, they helped make Britain an epicenter of horticultural and botanical expertise. The Brother Gardeners paints a vivid portrait of an emerging world of knowledge and gardening as we know it today.
Royster scrupulously follows the paper trail through the byways of transatlantic deal-cutting, providing a rare view of early American economic culture. Elegantly written and impressively researched, The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company is an eye-opening account of greed, folly, and venture capitalism in the revolutionary era.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Originally published in 1735, The History and Lives of Notorious Pirates and Their Crews grippingly chronicles the adventures and misadventures of the most infamous pirates who ruled the high seas at the turn of the eighteenth century. From Captain Spriggs’ rampant use of torture on his victims, to Bartholomew Robert’s incredibly successful pirating career, Blackbeard’s legendary fearsome demeanor, and Captain Kidd’s tragic end, these truly enthralling stories of privateers turned bandits will leave readers on the edge of their seats.
Though the author’s true identity is still debated, his book helped shape the very concept we hold of pirates today—influencing such writers as J. M. Barrie, Rafael Sabatini, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, 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.
Scandal! Intrigue! Cossacks! Here the world’s most engaging royal historian chronicles the world’s most fascinating imperial dynasty: the Romanovs, whose three-hundred-year reign was remarkable for its shocking violence, spectacular excess, and unimaginable venality. In this incredibly entertaining history, Michael Farquhar collects the best, most captivating true tales of Romanov iniquity. We meet Catherine the Great, with her endless parade of virile young lovers (none of them of the equine variety); her unhinged son, Paul I, who ordered the bones of one of his mother’s paramours dug out of its grave and tossed into a gorge; and Grigori Rasputin, the “Mad Monk,” whose mesmeric domination of the last of the Romanov tsars helped lead to the monarchy’s undoing. From Peter the Great’s penchant for personally beheading his recalcitrant subjects (he kept the severed head of one of his mistresses pickled in alcohol) to Nicholas and Alexandra’s brutal demise at the hands of the Bolsheviks, Secret Lives of the Tsars captures all the splendor and infamy that was Imperial Russia.
Praise for Secret Lives of the Tsars
“An accessible, exciting narrative . . . Highly recommended for generalists interested in Russian history and those who enjoy the seamier side of past lives.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“An excellent condensed version of Russian history . . . a fine tale of history and scandal . . . sure to please general readers and monarchy buffs alike.”—Publishers Weekly
“Tales from the nasty lives of global royalty . . . an easy-reading, lightweight history lesson.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Readers of this book may get a sense of why Russians are so tolerant of tyrants like Stalin and Putin. Given their history, it probably seems normal.”—The Washington Post
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Creating a colourful and original colonial landscape, she considers topics such as:
* sodomy
* theatre
* masculinity
* the symbolism of Britannia
* the role of women in war.
Wilson shows the far-reaching implications that colonial power and expansion had upon the English people's sense of self, and argues that the vaunted singularity of English culture was in fact constituted by the bodies, practices and exchanges of peoples across the globe. Theoretically rigorous and highly readable, The Island Race will become a seminal text for understanding the pressing issues that it confronts.
Completed in the last months of the young Schubert’s life, Winterreise has come to be considered the single greatest piece of music in the history of Lieder. Deceptively laconic—these twenty-four short poems set to music for voice and piano are performed uninterrupted in little more than an hour—it nonetheless has an emotional depth and power that no music of its kind has ever equaled. A young man, rejected by his beloved, leaves the house where he has been living and walks out into snow and darkness. As he wanders away from the village and into the empty countryside, he experiences a cascade of emotions—loss, grief, anger, and acute loneliness, shot through with only fleeting moments of hope—until the landscape he inhabits becomes one of alienation and despair. Originally intended to be sung to an intimate gathering, performances of Winterreise now pack the greatest concert halls around the world.
Drawing equally on his vast experience performing this work (he has sung it more than one hundred times), on his musical knowledge, and on his training as a scholar, Bostridge teases out the enigmas and subtle meanings of each of the twenty-four lyrics to explore for us the world Schubert inhabited, his biography and psychological makeup, the historical and political pressures within which he became one of the world’s greatest composers, and the continuing resonances and affinities that our ears still detect today, making Schubert’s wanderer our mirror.
Despite five centuries of investigation by historians, the sinister deaths of the boy king Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, remain one of the most fascinating murder mysteries in English history. Did Richard III really kill the young princes, as is commonly believed, or was the murderer someone else entirely? Carefully examining every shred of contemporary evidence as well as the dozens of modern accounts, Weir reconstructs the entire chain of events leading to the double murder to arrive at a conclusion Sherlock Holmes himself could not dispute.
From the Hardcover edition.
In this compelling account, the French Revolution stands once again as a culmination of the emancipatory and democratic ideals of the Enlightenment. That it ended in the Terror represented a betrayal of those ideas—not their fulfillment.
There were thousands of black Britons in the eighteenth century, but few accounts of their lives exist. In uncovering Francis Barber’s story, this book not only provides insights into his life and Samuel Johnson’s but also opens a window onto London when slaves had yet to win their freedom.
Was the Revolution a major turning point in French—even world—history, or was it instead a protracted period of violent upheaval and warfare that wrecked millions of lives? McPhee evaluates the Revolution within a genuinely global context: Europe, the Atlantic region, and even farther. He acknowledges the key revolutionary events that unfolded in Paris, yet also uncovers the varying experiences of French citizens outside the gates of the city: the provincial men and women whose daily lives were altered—or not—by developments in the capital. Enhanced with evocative stories of those who struggled to cope in unpredictable times, McPhee’s deeply researched book investigates the changing personal, social, and cultural world of the eighteenth century. His startling conclusions redefine and illuminate both the experience and the legacy of France’s transformative age of revolution.
Like Amanda Foreman’s bestselling Georgiana, Daughters of Ireland brings to life the world of a glittering elite in an age of international revolution. When her daughters, Margaret and Mary, were at their most impressionable, Lady Kingsborough hired the firebrand feminist Mary Wollstonecraft to be their governess, little realizing how radically this would alter both girls’ beliefs and characters. The tall, striking Margaret went on to provide crucial support to the United Irishmen in the days leading up to the Rebellion of 1798, while soft, pleasing Mary indulged in an illicit, and all but incestuous love affair that precipitated multiple tragedies.
As the Kingsboroughs imploded, the most powerful and colorful figures of the day were swept up in their drama—the dashing aristocrat turned revolutionary Lord Edward Fitzgerald; the liberal, cultivated Countess of Moira, a terrible snob despite her support of Irish revolutionaires; the notorious philanderer Colonel George King, whose sexual debauchery was matched only by his appalling cruelty; Britain’s cold calculating prime minister William Pitt and its mad ruler King George III.
With irresistible narrative drive and richly intimate historic detail, Daughters of Ireland an absolutely spellbinding work of history, biography, passion, and rebellion.
From the Hardcover edition.
Nelson is a thrilling new appraisal of Horatio Nelson, the greatest practitioner of naval command the world has ever seen. It explores the professional, personal, intellectual and practical origins of one man's genius, to understand how the greatest warrior that Britain has ever produced transformed the art of conflict, and enabled his country to survive the challenge of total war and international isolation.
In Nelson, Andrew Lambert - described by David Cannadine as 'the outstanding British naval historian of his generation' - is able to offer new insights into the individual quality which led Byron rightly to celebrate Nelson's genius as 'Britannia's God of War'. He demonstrates how Admiral Nelson elevated the business of naval warfare to the level of the sublime. Nelson's unique gift was to take that which other commanders found complex, and reduce it to simplicity. Where his predecessors and opponents saw a particular battle as an end in itself, Nelson was always a step ahead - even in the midst of terrifying, close-quarters action, with officers and men struck down all around him.
'Excellent . . . Worthy of the stirring events [it celebrates].' Independent
Mr. Cone frankly acknowledges the flexibility of view Burke displayed while active in politics, but he also reveals Burke's basic continuity of principle. His career as a public man was a quest for justice and good order in the affairs of men. Each of the great problems he encountered served to develop in him the belief that the duty of the statesman was to bring his society into harmony with the moral order of the universe.
Burke was absorbed in four great causes after 1782. One was domestic the constitutional and social order of England. Burke championed the independence of parliament, the supremacy of the House of Commons, and the aristocratic political system against those who asserted the prerogative powers of the crown or the necessity for parliamentary reform. As before 1782, he continued to advocate party as the instrument for giving effect to the constitutional principles that would preserve the liberties of Englishmen.
For the people of the British Empire too, Burke sought justice. With America gone, he turned his attention to the administration of India. Deeply entangled with domestic politics, the impeachment of Warren Hastings, governor general of India, for abuse of his office engrossed Burke through almost all of the last fifteen years of his life. Mr. Cone's account of the impeachment is the fullest that any student of Burke has published.
Another great imperial problem, justice for the people of Ireland, also runs through the entire period 1782--1797. As during the American Revolution, Burke desired to preserve the unity of the British Empire and the integrity of the protectionist commercial system, and so he approached the Irish problem with the conviction that justice could be attained within the superintending authority of the imperial government.
The crisis of the French Revolution dominates the last half of the book. Because it was based upon principles of man and society, the Revolution forced Burke, as no earlier crisis had done, to give the fullest expression to his philosophy in one of the great political documents of the world. Mr. Cone presents here a discerning analysis both of the nature of Burke's opposition to the basic ideas of the Enlightenment and an exposition of the historical-legal principle which had emerged in Burke's own thought from the experience of a full life.
The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745-46 is one of the most important turning points in British history--in terms of national crisis every bit the equal of 1066 and 1940. The tale of Charles Edward Stuart, "Bonnie Prince Charlie," and his heroic attempt to regain his grandfather's (James II) crown--remains the stuff of legend: the hunted fugitive, Flora MacDonald, and the dramatic escape over the sea to the Isle of Skye. But the full story--the real history--is even more dramatic, captivating, and revelatory.
Much more than a single rebellion, the events of 1745 were part of an ongoing civil war that threatened to destabilize the British nation and its empire. The Bonnie Prince and his army alone, which included a large contingent of Scottish highlanders, could not have posed a great threat. But with the involvement of Britain's perennial enemy, Catholic France, it was a far more dangerous and potentially catastrophic situation for the British crown. With encouragement and support from Louis XV, Charles's triumphant Jacobite army advanced all the way to Derby, a mere 120 miles from London, before a series of missteps ultimately doomed the rebellion to crushing defeat and annihilation at Culloden in April 1746--the last battle ever fought on British soil.
Jacqueline Riding conveys the full weight of these monumental years of English and Scottish history as the future course of Great Britain as a united nation was irreversibly altered.
Will Bashor traces the final days of the prisoner registered only as Widow Capet, No. 280, a time that was a cruel mixture of grandeur, humiliation, and terror. Marie Antoinette’s reign amidst the splendors of the court of Versailles is a familiar story, but her final imprisonment in a fetid, dank dungeon is a little-known coda to a once-charmed life. Her seventy-six days in this terrifying prison can only be described as the darkest and most horrific of the fallen queen’s life, vividly recaptured in this richly researched history.