Résultats de recherche de titre
Articles 1 à 20 sur 599
The Real Guy Fawkes
Par Nick Holland. 2017
This biography looks behind the mask of the seventeenth-century rebel who became a controversial folk hero for his role in…
the infamous Gunpowder Plot.Today, Guy Fawkes is an instantly recognizable symbol of violent rebellion across the globe. Some proudly dress in his image while others burn his effigy. But few people know the story of the man behind the legend. In The Real Guy Fawkes, biographer Nick Holland explores his eventful life and the complicated, dangerous era in which he lived.Born in York in 1570, Fawkes was raised Protestant, yet went on to plan mass murder for the Catholic cause. Prepared to risk everything and endanger countless lives, was he a freedom fighter, a treasonous fanatic, or merely a fool? Holland offers a fresh take on Fawkes’s early life, showing how he was radicalized into a Catholic mercenary and a key member of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. Featuring beautiful illustrations, this accessible and engaging biography combines contemporary accounts with modern analysis to reveal new motivations behind his actions.The Late Lord: The Life of John Pitt–2nd Earl of Chatham
Par Jacqueline Reiter. 2017
This biography of the second Earl of Chatham looks beyond his famous military failure to reveal one of the early…
nineteenth century’s most fascinating figures.John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, is one of the most enigmatic and overlooked figures of early nineteenth century British history. The elder brother of Pitt the Younger, he has long been consigned to history as the late Lord Chatham, the lazy commander-in-chief of the 1809 Walcheren expedition, whose inactivity and incompetence turned what should have been an easy victory into a disaster. In The Late Lord, Jacqueline Reiter presents a more nuanced and revealing portrait. During a twenty-year career at the heart of government, Pitt served in several important cabinet posts such as First Lord of the Admiralty and Master-General of the Ordnance. Yet despite his closeness to the Prime Minister and friendship with the Royal Family, political rivalries and private tragedy hampered his ascendance. Paradoxically for a man of widely admired diplomatic skills, his downfall owed as much to his personal insecurities and penchant for making enemies as it did to military failure.Using a variety of manuscript sources to tease Chatham from the records, this biography peels away the myths and places him for the first time in proper familial, political, and military context. It breathes life into a much-maligned member of one of Britain’s greatest political dynasties, revealing a deeply flawed man trapped in the shadow of his illustrious relatives.Cleanse Their Souls: Peace-Keeping in Bosnia's Civil War, 1992–1993
Par Monty Woolley. 2004
A memoir of the lethal conflict in the former Yugoslavia, by a British soldier who was on the front lines.…
This is a young cavalry lieutenant&’s moving and shocking account of front line service in the cauldron of war. His troop of Scimitar light-armored vehicles was attached to the 1 CHESHIRE Battle Group, under the charismatic command of Colonel Bob Stewart. Fresh from Germany, he and his men found themselves in a highly political and lethally dangerous civil war. They witnessed appalling atrocities and human tragedy on a giant scale. Yet both soldiers and civilians showed massive courage and resilience. Thanks to the author's diary, we have here an extraordinary, spontaneous, and important account of British troops performing vital military and humanitarian tasks, described by war correspondent and MP Martin Bell as &“earning its place among the impartial narratives of the Bosnian War.&”The Lion House: The Coming of a King
Par Christopher De Bellaigue. 2022
“Christopher de Bellaigue has a magic talent for writing history. It is as if we are there as the era…
of Suleyman the Magnificent unfolds.” —Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature Narrated through the eyes of the intimates of Suleyman the Magnificent, the sixteenth-century sultan of the Ottoman Empire, The Lion House animates with stunning immediacy the fears and stratagems of those brought into orbit around him: the Greek slave who becomes his Grand Vizier, the Venetian jewel dealer who acts as his go-between, the Russian consort who becomes his most beloved wife.Within a decade and a half, Suleyman held dominion over twenty-five million souls, from Baghdad to the walls of Vienna, and with the help of his brilliant pirate commander, Barbarossa, placed more Christians than ever before or since under Muslim rule. And yet the real drama takes place in close-up: in small rooms and whispered conversations, behind the curtain of power, where the sultan sleeps head-to-toe with his best friend and eats from wooden spoons with his baby boy.In The Lion House, Christopher de Bellaigue tells the story not just of rival superpowers in an existential duel, nor of one of the most consequential lives in human history, but of what it means to live in a time when a few men get to decide the fate of the world.Willie Brown: A Biography
Par James Richardson. 1996
This is the first comprehensive biography of Willie Brown, one of California's most enduring and controversial politicians. Audacious, driven, talented—Brown…
has dominated California politics longer and more completely than any other public figure. James Richardson, a senior writer for The Sacramento Bee, takes us from Brown's childhood, through his years as Speaker of the State Assembly, to his election as San Francisco's mayor. Along the way we get a riveting, behind-the-scenes account of three decades of California politics.Andrew Furuseth: Emancipator of the Seamen
Par Hyman Weintraub. 2023
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out…
and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1959.Tiberius (Blackwell Ancient Lives Ser.)
Par Robin Seager. 2023
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out…
and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.An American in Hitler's Berlin: Abraham Plotkin's Diary, 1932-33
Par Abraham Plotkin. 2007
This is the first published edition of the diary of Abraham Plotkin, an American labor leader of immigrant Jewish origin…
who lived in Berlin between November 1932 and May 1933. A firsthand account of the Weimar Republic's final months and the early rise of Nazi power in Germany, Plotkin's diary focuses on the German working class, the labor movement, and the plight of German Jews. Plotkin investigated Berlin's social conditions with the help of German Social-Democratic leaders whose analyses of the situation he records alongside his own. Compared to the writings of other American observers of the Third Reich, Plotkin's diary is unique in style, scope, themes, and time span. Most accounts of Hitler's rise to power emphasize political institutions by focusing on the Nazi party's clashes with other political forces. In contrast, Plotkin is especially attentive to socioeconomic factors, providing an alternative view from the left that stems from his access to key German labor and socialist leaders. Chronologically, the diary reports on the moment when Hitler's seizure of power was not yet inevitable and when leaders on the left still believed in a different outcome of the crisis, but it also includes Plotkin's account of the complete destruction of German labor in May 1933.Over the Ocean: A Wartime Story of Exile and Enduring Love
Par Erica Fischer, Andrew Brown. 2014
From the author of Aimée and Jaguar comes the extraordinary true love story of a couple who were separated during…
a shameful and fascinating chapter of British historyErica Fischer tells her own parents' astonishing story and at the same time sheds light on a little-known, little-discussed chapter in British history. Fischer's parents met in Austria in the early 1930s. Her mother, Irka, was a Polish Jew and her father, Erich, was a Viennese lapsed Catholic. In 1938, Irka fled to the United Kingdom, to be followed the year after by her husband. By no means a rarity as refugees, they found work in southern England. However at the outbreak of war, Erich was arrested as an "enemy alien," which was then common practice in time of war. After being interned, he was transported to Australia in July 1940, along with 2,500 other deportees. The conditions were appalling on board the Dunera: the men were locked up below decks with overflowing latrines and only seawater to clean themselves. Faced with unimaginable hardships, the deportees banded together in solidarity to face their new life. Erich and Irka struggled to maintain a correspondence to try to ensure that they would be able to find each other when the war came to an end. Amazingly crafted, this biography reads like fiction and vividly evokes a chapter in history with which few people are familiar.The book describes how Lisa Meitner, of Jewish heritage, found herself working as a physicist at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute…
in Berlin when the Nazis came to power in 1933; how she was hounded out of the country and forced to relocate to Sweden; how German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman continued with the project – on the effect of bombarding uranium (the heaviest known element at the time) with neutrons, a project which Lise herself had initiated, being the intellectual leader of the group. It describes how Hahn and Strassmann, with whom she kept in touch, came up with some extraordinary results which they were at a loss to explain; how Lise, and her nephew Otto Frisch, who was also a physicist, confirmed what they had achieved - the ‘splitting of the atom’, no less, and provided them with a theoretical explanation for it. This laid the foundation for nuclear power, medical-scanning technology, radiotherapy, electronics, and of course, the atomic bomb - the creation of which filled Lise with horror. It describes the crucial part that Lise played in our understanding of the world of atoms, and how deliberate and strenuous attempts were made to deny her contribution; to belittle her achievements, and to write her out of the history books, even though Albert Einstein said she was even ‘more talented than Marie Curie herself’. The author is fortunate and honoured to have been granted several interviews with Lise’s nephew Philip Meitner – himself a refugee from the Nazis - who with his wife Anne, provided much valuable information and many photographs.Confessions of a Special Agent: Wartime Service in the Small Scale Raiding Force and SOE
Par Ernest Dudley, Jack Evans. 1957
Many are the tales of young men lying about their age to join the Army, yet Jack Evans sought far…
more at the age of just possibly just seventeen to act behind enemy lines as an agent of the Special Operations Executive.Evans had joined the RAF in 1940, despite being well under the legal age, and two years later was recruited into the SOE as a member of the Small Scale Raiding Force. Evans related his experiences with the SOE to author Ernest Dudley in the 1950s, in which he describes his training, including learning how to jump by parachute in preparation for an operation into France though he was withdrawn from the operation when his true age was disclosed. He then joined the SSRF, taking part in a number of raids upon Occupied France.Evans was then transferred to the Brandon Mission in Africa. This involved an eight-man team being parachuted into Tunisia to attack a railway line. In 1943 he was promoted to the rank of captain and parachuted into France, only to be captured by the Germans and imprisoned in Stalag Luft III for the remainder of the war.Evans suffered considerable mental trauma from his time behind enemy lines and his internment at the hands of the Germans and was unable to settle into normal civilian life. His astonishing story, written so soon after the end of the war, was considered in many respects to be ahead of its time.Roman Emperor Zeno: The Perils of Power Politics in Fifth-Century Constantinople
Par Peter Crawford. 2019
&“A very useful read for anyone interested in the Later Roman Empire, the fall of the Western Empire, and the emergence of…
the Byzantine State.&” —The NYMAS Review Peter Crawford examines the life and career of the fifth-century Roman emperor Zeno and the various problems he faced before and during his seventeen-year rule. Despite its length, his reign has hitherto been somewhat overlooked as being just a part of that gap between the Theodosian and Justinianic dynasties of the Eastern Roman Empire which is comparatively poorly furnished with historical sources. Reputedly brought in as a counterbalance to the generals who had dominated Constantinopolitan politics at the end of the Theodosian dynasty, the Isaurian Zeno quickly had to prove himself adept at dealing with the harsh realities of imperial power. Zeno&’s life and reign is littered with conflict and politicking with various groups—the enmity of both sides of his family; dealing with the fallout of the collapse of the Empire of Attila in Europe, especially the increasingly independent tribal groups established on the frontiers of, and even within, imperial territory; the end of the Western Empire; and the continuing religious strife within the Roman world. As a result, his reign was an eventful and significant one that deserves this long-overdue spotlight. &“Crawford&’s work on the life and reign of Zeno is a good introduction for a general audience to the complexities of the late fifth-century Roman Empire, telling a series of long and complex stories compellingly in a traditional fashion.&” —Bryn Mawr Classical ReviewThe Dark Side of Samuel Pepys: Society's First Sex Offender
Par Geoffrey Pimm. 2018
This historical biography reveals how the famous diarist of Restoration England used his professional position to act as a sexual…
predator. Samuel Pepys is popularly known as the founder of the modern navy, a member of the Royal Society and, most of all, as a unique and frank diarist. Less well known is that he was a serial sexual offender by modern standards; a voyeur, a groper, and a rapist. Set against the London society of Charles II&’s restoration, and extensively using Pepys&’ own words, this book concerns his numerous extramarital affairs. It demonstrates how he used his position of power and influence to advance the careers of his subordinates—in return for the sexual favors of their wives. With his own descriptions, translated from the strange mix of languages and the seventeenth-century shorthand he used to camouflage the content, the reader witnesses in graphic detail how Pepys set about achieving his lascivious objectives – on occasion resorting to physical force where persuasion or bribery failed. Whether she be wife, daughter, mother, or humble maidservant, no woman was safe from his rapacious sexual appetite.A unique biography of the military commander and politician who remains one of Britain&’s most controversial figures centuries after his…
death. One of the most important figures in British history, Oliver Cromwell was both soldier and politician and the only non-Royal ruler of Britain in a thousand years. His actions and ideas still have political and social consequences today, and his legacy still divides people. Love him or loathe him, Cromwell still matters. This book is a history of his life through the places in Britain and Ireland where he lived, visited, ruled, or fought. Following in the Footsteps of Oliver Cromwell begins in Huntingdon in 1599, with the respectable but unimportant Cromwell family living under the shadow of richer relatives. Civil War and Cromwell&’s controversial successes at Marston Moor, Naseby, Basing House, and Worcester transform him into the most powerful person in Britain, saving him from obscurity and moving him from a modest house in Ely to Hampton Court Palace. Cromwell is involved in the execution of King Charles I outside the Banqueting House, his own coronation in Westminster Hall, and bloody slaughter in Ireland. Even his death in 1658 does not end the controversy—as his enemies take revenge on his corpse and the debate about his legacy begins.Mary Queen of Scots' Secretary: William Maitland—Politician, Reformer and Conspirator
Par Robert Stedall. 2021
“It’s as good as a Philippa Gregory, and tells you so much more about Mary Queen of Scots and the…
people with whom she surrounded herself.” —Books MonthlyWilliam Maitland of Lethington was the most able politician and diplomat during the lifetime of Mary Queen of Scots. It was he who masterminded the Scottish Reformation by breaking the ‘Auld Alliance’ with France, which presaged Scotland’s lasting union with England.Although he gained English support to defeat French troops defending Mary’s Scottish throne, he backed her return to Scotland, as the widowed Queen of France. His attempts to gain recognition for her as heir to the English crown were thwarted by her determined adherence to Catholicism.After her remarriage, he spearheaded the plotting to bring down her objectionable husband, Lord Darnley, leading to his murder, after concluding that English and Scottish interests were best served by creating a Protestant regency for their son, Prince James. With encouragement from Cecil in England and the Protestant Lords in Scotland, he concocted evidence to implicate her in her husband’s murder, resulting in her imprisonment and deposition from the Scottish throne.This is the thrilling biography of a complicated man whose loyalty wavered between queen and country and whose behind-the-throne machinations may have caused her undoing—and his own . . . “A modern, convincing—I must also use that popular buzzword ‘game-changing’—biography that combines page-turning narrative with convincing, sophisticated, scholarly argument.” —Steven Veerapen, Professor of History, Strathclyde UniversityMarching from Defeat: Surviving the Collapse of the German Army in the Soviet Union 1944
Par Claus Neuber. 2020
In this WWII memoir, a Nazi soldier recounts his desperate retreat from Russia, offering rare insight into the collapse of…
Hitler’s Army Group Central.In June of 1944, the Red Army launched a massive offensive that crushed Hitler’s forces in Belarus. German soldiers who weren’t captured had to fight their way back towards their own lines across hundreds of miles of enemy territory. This is the story of one of them, Claus Neuber, a young artillery officer who describes in graphic detail his experiences during that great retreat.Neuber’s account carries the reader through the desperate defensive battles and rearguard actions fought to stem the relentless Soviet advance and breakout from the cauldrons between Minsk and the Beresina river. After almost seventy days as a fugitive, depending on the kindness of villagers, enduring extremes of cold, wet and hunger, Neuber found his way back to the German lines. This personal narrative, translated for the first time from the original German, gives a dramatic insight into the impact of the Soviet offensive and the disintegration of an entire German army. It vividly records in day-to-day detail the experience of such a bitter defeat.Bohemond of Taranto: Crusader and Conqueror
Par Georgios Theotokis. 2020
“A brilliant picture of a great medieval warrior and crusader, clear and concise, which brings to life the whole Mediterranean…
world in an age of crisis” (John France, author of Perilous Glory).Bohemond of Taranto, Lord of Antioch, was the unofficial leader of the First Crusade. A man of boundless ambition and inexhaustible energy, he was one of the most remarkable warriors in medieval Mediterranean history. While he failed in his quest to secure the Byzantine throne, he succeeded in founding the most enduring of all the crusader states. In this authoritative biography, Georgios Theotokis presents a detailed portrait of Bohemond as a soldier and commander.Covering Taranto’s contribution to the crusades, Theotokis focuses on his military achievements in Italy, Sicily, the Balkans, and Anatolia. Since medieval commanders generally receive little credit for their strategic understanding, Theotokis examines Bohemond’s war-plans in his many campaigns, describing how he adapted his battle-tactics when facing different opponents and considering whether his approach to war was typical of the Norman commanders of his time.From Colonial Warrior to Western Front Flyer: The Five Wars of Sydney Herbert Bywater Harris
Par Carole McEntee-Taylor. 2015
Sydney Herbert Bywater Harris was an adventurer, a man possessed of great courage and charm, who fulfilled every schoolboy fantasy…
and really did 'live the dream'. The second youngest of seven children, the ordinary life held little appeal for Sydney so, in 1898, at the age of 17, he left home in Ilford for the Klondike gold rush. Arriving too late to make his fortune he decided to join the US Army.Two and a half years later, after seeing action in the Boxer Rebellion and the Philippines Insurrection, Sydney returned to England where he met and married Elsa de Verde Verder, a lady from an affluent Vermont family. A year later Sydney joined the Kings Colonials Imperial Yeomanry, later renamed the King Edward's Horse. Still seeking excitement, in August 1914 he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and in 1916 went to France with 23 Squadron to fly the FE2b. Life expectancy for pilots on the front lines was very short and he was badly wounded while gun-spotting over enemy lines. After several months recovering he was posted to Turnberry as Chief Instructor and on the 13th August 1917, he was posted to Marske (by-the-Sea), with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, to form and command No.2 Fighting School. In 1919 he was awarded the Air Force Cross.But war was not quite finished with Sydney. In 1936, fleeing imminent bankruptcy, he became involved with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Returning back to England he joined the RAFVR (Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve) and when the Second World War broke out he was posted to Turnhouse as Section Controller. This really didn't suit him and, determined to see more action, at the age of 58, he arranged a transfer to France as Adjutant with No 1 Squadron where his duties included liaising with the French Air Force. He later transferred to 1 ATS near Perpignan and was one of the last to leave France with the German Blitzkrieg only a few hours away. Despite his ill health he continued to serve throughout the war and in 1947 became Commander at Marchwood Park where the members of the 'Guinea Pig' club went to recover.A remarkable life led in an era of endless possibilities.Royalties from this book will go to Help 4 Homeless Veterans who support Servicemen and women into suitable accommodation, and empower them to develop a civilian career through their links with employers and other organisations.Calendar Boy
Par Austin Mitchell. 2014
These are the highly controversial memoirs of Austin Mitchell, local TV star of the 1970s and MP for Great Grimsby.Austin…
was the poster boy for Calendar TV at a time when local television had a much greater impact than national TV and its stars were the celebrities of the day. Austin charts his career path and reveals how he fell into his role at Yorkshire Television and went on to become its most popular presenter. He reveals the truth behind some of the most popular moments in TV history, including the infamous spat between Brian Cough and Don Revie. Austin also reveals the massive difference between the politically correct obsessed journalistic world of today and that of the 1970s.After his television career, Austin went on to serve as MP for Great Grimsby taking over the seat in 1977. He is still MP today, but has announced that he will not stand at the next general election.Calendar Boy will be a highly entertaining read for anyone who remembers the glory days of Calendar and wants to learn about the truth behind working life at a hugely popular TV prgramme that many tried to imitate but never bettered.American Imperialist: Cruelty and Consequence in the Scramble for Africa
Par Arwen Mohun. 2023
This biography of “African explorer” Richard Dorsey Mohun, written by one of his descendants, reveals how American greed and state…
power helped shape the new imperial order in Africa. Richard Dorsey Mohun spent his career circulating among the eastern United States, the cities and courts of Europe, and the African continent, as he served the US State Department at some points and King Leopold of Belgium at others. A freelance imperialist, he implemented the schemes of American investors and the Congo Free State alike. Without men like him, Africa’s history might have unfolded very differently. How did an ordinary son of a Washington bookseller become the agent of American corporate greed and European imperial ambition? Why did he choose to act in ways that ranged from thoughtless and amoral to criminal and unforgivable? With unblinking clarity and precision, historian Arwen P. Mohun interrogates the life and actions of her great-grandfather in American Imperialist. She seeks not to excuse the man known as Dorsey but to understand how individual ambition and imperial lust fueled each other, to catastrophic ends. Ultimately, she offers a nuanced portrait of how her great-grandfather’s pursuit of career success and financial security for his family came at a tragic cost to countless Africans.