New Arrivals: DA 1 - DA 9999
Showing 1 - 25 of 100 new items.
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© 2017,NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The life and loves of Prince Charles are illuminated in a major new biography from the New York Times bestselling author of Elizabeth the Queen --perfect for fans of The Crown . Sally Bedell Smith returns once again to the British royal family to give us a new look at Prince Charles, the oldest heir to the throne in more than three hundred years. This vivid, eye-opening biography--the product of four years of research and hundreds of interviews with palace officials, former girlfriends, spiritual gurus, and more, some speaking on the record for the first time--is the first authoritative treatment of Charles's life that sheds light on the death of Diana, his marriage to Camilla, and his preparations to take the throne one day. Prince Charles brings to life the real man, with all of his ambitions, insecurities, and convictions. It begins with his lonely childhood, in which he struggled to live up to his father's expectations and sought companionship from the Queen Mother and his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten. It follows him through difficult years at school, his early love affairs, his intellectual quests, his entrepreneurial pursuits, and his intense search for spiritual meaning. It tells of the tragedy of his marriage to Diana; his eventual reunion with his true love, Camilla; and his relationships with William, Kate, Harry, and his grandchildren. Ranging from his glamorous palaces to his country homes, from his globe-trotting travels to his local initiatives, Smith shows how Prince Charles possesses a fiercely independent spirit and yet has spent more than six decades waiting for his destined role, living a life dictated by protocols he often struggles to obey. With keen insight and the discovery of unexpected new details, Smith lays bare the contradictions of a man who is more complicated, tragic, and compelling than we knew, until now. Praise for Prince Charles "[A] masterly account." -- The Wall Street Journal "Thoroughly researched and insightful . . . In this profile, it is clear [Smith] got inside the circular barriers that protect the man and his position. The Charles that emerges is, as the subtitle suggests, both a paradox and a creature of his passions." -- The Washington Times "[A] compellingly juicy bio . . . Windsor-philes will be mesmerized." -- People " Prince Charles paints an affectingly human portrait. . . . Smith writes about [Charles's life] with a skill and sympathy she perfected in her 2012 biography of Charles's mother." -- The Christian Science Monitor "A multidimensional portrait of a complex, sensitive, and often visionary man . . . this highly accessible and thoroughly researched volume would do well in all collections." -- Library Journal "Comprehensive and admirably fair . . . Until his accession to the throne, Smith's portrait will stand as the definitive study."-- Booklist, starred review "Astute . . . a sympathetic psychological study . . . [Smith's] portrait is enormously touching and supported by wide-ranging interviews and research."-- Kirkus Reviews "[A] fascinating book that is not just about a man who would be king, but also about the duties that come with privilege." --Walter Isaacson "Sally Bedell Smith has given us a complete and compelling portrait of the man in the shadow of the throne. It's all here, from the back stairs of the palaces to the front pages of the tabs." --Tom Brokaw -
© 2009,This second revised and expanded edition of the bestselling Integration and Enlightenment provides a compact survey of developments in Enlightenment Scotland, from the aftermath of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion to the Scottish Reform Act of 1832. The Act spelled the end of political and social systems that had presided over industrial and agricultural revolutions turning Scotland from a rural society to one of the most urbanised and industrialised of European nations. Scotland also moved from an being simply an active participant in the cultural life of western Europe to being a leader in a new, more expansive, Atlantic and European world where the ideas of its great Enlightenment thinkers circulated from Moscow to Philadelphia.The political framework for changes was the Union of 1707 which incorporated Scotland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and after 1800 Great Britain and Ireland. However, within the UK a distinctive political system run for most of this period by either the Dukes of Argyll or the so-called 'Dundas Despotism' dominated Scotland. This volume studies how that system first stimulated and exploited cultural and economic change and then was finally destroyed by it.
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© 2015,King John is familiar to everyone as the villain from the tales of Robin Hood--greedy, cowardly, despicable, and cruel. But who was the man behind the legend? Was he truly a monster, or a capable ruler cursed by bad luck? In this new book bestselling historian Marc Morris draws on contemporary chronicles and the king's own letters to bring the real King John vividly to life.John was dynamic, inventive and relentless, but also a figure with terrible flaws. In two interwoven stories, we see how he went from being a youngest son with limited prospects to the ruler of the greatest dominion in Europe, an empire that stretched from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees. His rise to power involved treachery, rebellion and murder. His reign saw oppression on an almost unprecedented scale: former friends hounded into exile and oblivion; Wales, Scotland and Ireland invaded; the greatest level of financial exploitation since the Norman Conquest. A quarrel with the pope led to the king being excommunicated and England being placed under Interdict. John's tyrannical rule climaxed in conspiracy and revolt, and his leading subjects famously forced him to issue Magna Carta, a document binding him and his successors to behave better in future. The king's rejection of the charter led to civil war and foreign invasion, bringing his life to a disastrous close.Authoritative and dramatic, Marc Morris's King John offers a compelling portrait of an extraordinary man, whose reign marked a momentous turning point in the history of Britain and Europe.
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© 2016,From New York Times bestselling author of Destiny of the Republic and The River of Doubt , a thrilling narrative of Winston Churchill's extraordinary and little-known exploits during the Boer War At age twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England one day, despite the fact he had just lost his first election campaign for Parliament. He believed that to achieve his goal he must do something spectacular on the battlefield. Despite deliberately putting himself in extreme danger as a British Army officer in colonial wars in India and Sudan, and as a journalist covering a Cuban uprising against the Spanish, glory and fame had eluded him. Churchill arrived in South Africa in 1899, valet and crates of vintage wine in tow, there to cover the brutal colonial war the British were fighting with Boer rebels. But just two weeks after his arrival, the soldiers he was accompanying on an armored train were ambushed, and Churchill was taken prisoner. Remarkably, he pulled off a daring escape--but then had to traverse hundreds of miles of enemy territory, alone, with nothing but a crumpled wad of cash, four slabs of chocolate, and his wits to guide him. The story of his escape is incredible enough, but then Churchill enlisted, returned to South Africa, fought in several battles, and ultimately liberated the men with whom he had been imprisoned. Churchill would later remark that this period, "could I have seen my future, was to lay the foundations of my later life." Millard spins an epic story of bravery, savagery, and chance encounters with a cast of historical characters--including Rudyard Kipling, Lord Kitchener, and Mohandas Gandhi--with whom he would later share the world stage. But Hero of the Empire is more than an adventure story, for the lessons Churchill took from the Boer War would profoundly affect 20th century history. From the Hardcover edition.
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© 2015,In this new assessment of Henry VI, David Grummitt synthesizes a wealth of detailed research into Lancastrian England that has taken place throughout the last three decades to provide a fresh appraisal of the house's last King. The biography places Henry in the context of Lancastrian political culture and considers how his reign was shaped by the times in which he lived. Henry VI is one of the most controversial of England's medieval kings. Coming to the throne in 1422 at the age of only nine months and inheriting the crowns of both England and France, he reigned for 39 years before losing his position to the Yorkist king, Edward IV, in the early stages of the Wars of the Roses. Almost a decade later, in 1470, he briefly regained the throne, only for his cause to be decisively defeated in battle the following year, after which Henry himself was almost certainly murdered. Henry continues to perplex and fascinate the modern reader, who struggles to understand how such an obviously ill-suited king could continue to reign for nearly forty years and command such loyalty, even after his cause was lost. From his coronation at nine months old, to the legacy of his reign in the centuries after his death, this is a balanced, detailed and engaging biography of one of England's most enigmatic kings and will be essential reading for all students of late medieval England, and the Wars of the Roses. -
© 2015,Based largely on Neville Chamberlain's own words and official government documents, this book describes how were it not for Chamberlain's powerful, dominating presence in the British government, World War II might have been avoided. * Describes how Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement with Germany brought England unprepared to the brink of conflict--a historic lesson that has value and relevance today for those studying relationships in the Middle East * Addresses why Chamberlain took chances with British national security, how he sabotaged talks with the Russians, and how he misled his colleagues down the path of appeasement * Draws information from primary sources such as Chamberlain's diary, his faithful exchange of weekly letters with his sisters, and the weekly Cabinet minutes to provide a more complete understanding of events
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© 2014,Dublin has experienced greatâe"and often astonishingâe"change in its 1,400 year history. It has been the largest urban center on a deeply contested island since towns first appeared west of the Irish Sea. There have been other contested cities in the European and Mediterranean world, but almost no European capital city, David Dickson maintains, has seen sharper discontinuities and reversals in its historyâe"and these have left their mark on Dublin and its inhabitants. Dublin occupies a unique place in Irish history and the Irish imagination. To chronicle its vast and varied history is to tell the story of Ireland. David Dicksonâe(tm)s magisterial history brings Dublin vividly to life beginning with its medieval incarnation and progressing through the neoclassical eighteenth century, when for some it was the âeoeNaples of the North,âe to the Easter Rising that convulsed a war-weary city in 1916, to the bloody civil war that followed the handover of power by Britain, to the urban renewal efforts at the end of the millennium. He illuminates the fate of Dubliners through the centuriesâe"clergymen and officials, merchants and land speculators, publishers and writers, and countless othersâe"who have been shaped by, and who have helped to shape, their city. He reassesses 120 years of Anglo-Irish Union, during which Dublin remained a place where rival creeds and politics struggled for supremacy. A book as rich and diverse as its subject, Dublin reveals the intriguing story behind the making of a capital city.
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© 2014,In Victorian London, filth was everywhere: horse traffic filled the streets with dung, household rubbish went uncollected, cesspools brimmed with "night soil," graveyards teemed with rotting corpses, the air itself was choked with smoke. In this intimately visceral book, Lee Jackson guides us through the underbelly of the Victorian metropolis, introducing us to the men and women who struggled to stem a rising tide of pollution and dirt, and the forces that opposed them. Through thematic chapters, Jackson describes how Victorian reformers met with both triumph and disaster. Full of individual stories and overlooked details--from the dustmen who grew rich from recycling, to the peculiar history of the public toilet--this riveting book gives us a fresh insight into the minutiae of daily life and the wider challenges posed by the unprecedented growth of the Victorian capital.
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© 2014,Britain's role and performance in the two World Wars continues to generate considerable debate but the wars are rarely considered together. Leading military historian Brian Bond here challenges the popular view of the First World War as catastrophic and futile in contrast to the Second World War as a well-conducted and victorious moral crusade. He focuses on the key issues which have caused controversy and distortion, to demonstrate how these views became deeply rooted in popular culture in the years since 1945. These issues range from policy and strategy, combat experience, the attritional strategies of naval blockade and strategic bombing to British generalship, and gains and losses in the aftermath of both wars. He also considers the learning process of the British Army in both world wars. He boldly concludes that in a number of important respects Britain was more successful in the First World War than in the Second.
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© 2015,A loving and hilarious--if occasionally spiky--valentine to Bill Bryson's adopted country, Great Britain. Prepare for total joy and multiple episodes of unseemly laughter. Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to discover and celebrate that green and pleasant land. The result was Notes from a Small Island, a true classic and one of the bestselling travel books ever written. Now he has traveled about Britain again, by bus and train and rental car and on foot, to see what has changed--and what hasn't. Following (but not too closely) a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis in the south to Cape Wrath in the north, by way of places few travelers ever get to at all, Bryson rediscovers the wondrously beautiful, magnificently eccentric, endearingly singular country that he both celebrates and, when called for, twits. With his matchless instinct for the funniest and quirkiest and his unerring eye for the idiotic, the bewildering, the appealing, and the ridiculous, he offers acute and perceptive insights into all that is best and worst about Britain today. Nothing is more entertaining than Bill Bryson on the road--and on a tear. The Road to Little Dribbling reaffirms his stature as a master of the travel narrative--and a really, really funny guy.
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© 2002,In Soldiers: Fighting Men's Lives, 1901-2001 , Philip Ziegler chronicles the lives of nine enlisted men. Ziegler paints detailed portraits of these extraordinary yet ordinary men, who now reside in the Royal Hospital Chelsea-a three-hundred-year-old institution still serving its original purpose of caring for military veterans. With first-hand accounts of their service from Paschendale to Anzio, the Malayan emergency to the Mau Mau uprising, Soldiers looks beyond the battlefield into the family history, daily routines, and values of veteran servicemen. To read this book is to understand what soldiers are all about, what they fight for, and what role they play in the world today.
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© 2015,King John (1166-1216) has long been seen as the epitome of bad kings. The son of the most charismatic couple of the middle ages, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and younger brother of the heroic crusader king, Richard the Lionheart, John lived much of his life in the shadow of his family. When in 1199 he became ruler of his family's lands in England and France, John proved unequal to the task of keeping them together. Early in his reign he lost much of his continental possessions,and over the next decade would come perilously close to losing his English kingdom, too. In King John , medieval historian Stephen Church argues that John's reign, for all its failings, would prove to be a crucial turning point in English history. Though he was a masterful political manipulator, John's traditional ideas of unchecked sovereign power were becoming increasingly unpopular among his subjects, resulting in frequent confrontations. Nor was he willing to tolerate any challenges to his authority. For six long years, John and the pope struggled over the appointment of theArchbishop of Canterbury, a clash that led to the king's excommunication. As king of England, John taxed his people heavily to fund his futile attempt to reconquer the lands lost to the king of France. The cost to his people of this failure was great, but it was greater still for John. In 1215, his subjects rose in rebellion against their king and forced upon him a new constitution by which he was to rule. The principles underlying this constitution--enshrined in the terms of Magna Carta--would go on to shape democratic constitutions across the globe, including our own. In this authoritative biography, Church describes how it was that a king famous for his misrule gave rise to Magna Carta, the blueprint for good governance.
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© 2014,The first comprehensive history of the deeply entwined personal and public lives of the Churchills and the Kennedys and what their "special relationship" meant for Great Britain and the United States When Lions Roar begins in the mid-1930s at Chartwell, Winston Churchill's country estate, with new revelations surrounding a secret business deal orchestrated by Joseph P. Kennedy, the soon-to-be American ambassador to Great Britain and the father of future American president John F. Kennedy. From London to America, these two powerful families shared an ever-widening circle of friends, lovers, and political associates - soon shattered by World War II, spying, sexual infidelity, and the tragic deaths of JFK's sister Kathleen and his older brother Joe Jr. By the 1960s and JFK's presidency, the Churchills and the Kennedys had overcome their bitter differences and helped to define the "greatness" in each other. Acclaimed biographer Thomas Maier tells this dynastic saga through fathers and their sons - and the remarkable women in their lives - providing keen insight into the Churchill and Kennedy families and the profound forces of duty, loyalty, courage and ambition that shaped them. He explores the seismic impact of Winston Churchill on JFK and American policy, wrestling anew with the legacy of two titans of the twentieth century. Maier also delves deeply into the conflicted bond between Winston and his son, Randolph, and the contrasting example of patriarch Joe Kennedy, a failed politician who successfully channeled his personal ambitions to his children. By approaching these iconic figures from a new perspective, Maier not only illuminates the intricacies of this all-important cross-Atlantic allegiance but also enriches our understanding of the tumultuous time in which they lived and the world events they so greatly influenced. With deeply human portraits of these flawed but larger-than-life figures, When Lions Roar explores the "special relationship" between the Churchills and Kennedys, and between Great Britain and the United States, highlighting all of its emotional complexity and historic significance. From the Hardcover edition.
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© 2013,Benjamin Disraeli and William Ewart Gladstone are without doubt the two most iconic figures of Victorian politics. Their distinctly different personalities and policies led to 28 years of bitter political rivalry. For the first time, this book provides the full story of their rivalry and its origins, comparing the upbringing, education and personalities of the two leaders, as well as their political careers. Dick Leonard considers the impact of religion on the two men, their contrasting oratorical skills, their attitudes to political and social reform, foreign affairs and imperialism as well as their relations with Queen Victoria. In their private lives he sheds new light on Gladstone's guilt-ridden obsession with 'reforming' prostitutes, and Disraeli's almost completely successful efforts to conceal the existence of two illegitimate children. Providing important new perspectives on the two towering political characters of the Victorian Age, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in nineteenth century British history and politics.
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© 2013,Chip Chapman commanded and fought with 2 Para at the Battle of Goose Green. He was Head of Counter Terrorism for the MoD. This collection of true stories from an illustrious military career will make you laugh and cry in equal measure.
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© 2012,On the two hundredth anniversary of the assassination of Spencer Perceval - the only British Prime Minister ever to have suffered that fate - this is the riveting untold story of the murder, the murderer and the enormous repercussions of his act.
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© 2008,On Monday, 11 May 1812, John Bellingham made his way to the Palace of Westminster. In the lobby leading to the House of Commons, he took out a concealed pistol and shot the Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval. There was no mystery about the killer's identity, but why did he do it? Captured in this dramatic story are all the ingredients of a thriller: suspense, revenge, personal tragedy, and murder. At the heart is the extraordinary story of how an honest businessman ended up imprisoned in a rat-infested Russian jail for six years, refused all help by his own government. Unable to obtain the justice he thought was his due, Bellingham did the only thing he could to express his outrage and achieve a kind of natural justice. David C. Hanrahan's lively and colorful narrative does full justice to this extraordinary tale of neglect and obsession. He paints a convincing and moving picture of Bellingham's desperation and explores the reasons for the ambassador's failure to take any action to help him as well as the indifference shown by the government to his petitions once he had managed to get back home.
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© 1998,Perhaps the most influential sovereign England has ever known, Queen Elizabeth I reigned prosperously for more than forty years, from 1558 until her death in 1603. During her rule, however, she remained an extremely private person, keeping her own counsel and sharing secrets with no one--not even her closest, most trusted advisors. Now, in this brilliantly researched, fascinating new book, acclaimed biographer Alison Weir brings the enigmatic figure of Elizabeth 1 to life as never before. Here are provocative new interpretations and fresh insights on the intimacy between Elizabeth and Robert Dudley, who rose from Master of the Horse to become Earl of Leicester; the imprisonment and execution of Elizabeth's rival, Mary Stuart; Elizabeth's clash with Philip of Spain, once her suitor and then her enemy; and the cruel betrayal of her beloved Essex. Against a lavish backdrop of pageantry and passion, intrigue and war, Weir dispels the myths surrounding Elizabeth I and examines the contradictions of her character, exploring complex questions. Elizabeth I loved the Earl of Leicester, but did she conspire to murder his wife? She called herself the Virgin Queen, but how chaste was she through dozens of liaisons? She never married, but was her choice to remain single tied to the chilling fate of her mother, Anne Boleyn? An enthralling epic that is also an amazingly intimate portrait, Alison Weir's The Life of Elizabeth I is a work of deep reflection and extraordinary scholarship--a mesmerizing, stunning reading experience.
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© 1992,Recreates Queen Victoria's relationships with her family, her ministers, and her servants to depict the life of the ruler of the world's largest empire
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© 1999,Recent years have seen a resurgence of separatist sentiments among national minorities in many industrial societies, including the United Kingdom. In 1997, the Scottish and Welsh both set up their own parliamentary bodies, while the tragic events in Northern Ireland continued to be a reminder of the Irish problem. These phenomena call into question widely accepted social theories which assume that ethnic attachments in a society will wane as industrialization proceeds. This book presents the social basis of ethnic identity, and examines changes in the strength of ethnic solidarity in the United Kingdom in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition to its value as a case study, the work also has important comparative implications, for it suggests that internal colonialism of the kind experienced in the British Isles has its analogues in the histories of other industrial societies. Hechter examines the unexpected persistence of ethnicity in the politics of industrial societies by focusing on the British Isles. Why do many of the inhabitants of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland continue to maintain an ethnic identity opposed to England? Hechter explains the salience of ethnic identity by analyzing the relationships between England, the national core, and its periphery, the Celtic fringe, in the light of two alternative models of core-periphery relations in the industrial setting. These are a diffusion model, which predicts that intergroup contact leads to ethnic homogenization, and an internal colonial model, in which such contact heightens distinctive ethnic identification. His findings lend support to the internal colonial model, and show that, although industrialization did contribute to a decline in interregional linguistic differences, it resulted neither in the cultural assimilation of Celtic lands, nor in the development of regional economic equality. The study concludes that ethnic solidarity will inevitably emerge among groups which are relegated to inferior positions in a cultural division of labor. This is an important contribution to the understanding of socioeconomic development and ethnicity.
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© 2004,In a biography of style and energy, Frances Wilson makes use of previously unseen letters, law reports and confidential Government correspondence to reveal the true story of the sexual celebrity who blackmailed the British aristocracy and held even the king to ransom.
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© 2008,London in the 19th century was the greatest city mankind had ever seen. Its wealth was dazzling. Its horrors shocked the world. As William Blake put it, London was "a Human awful wonder of God." It was a century of genius--of Blake, Thackeray, and Mayhew, of Nash, Faraday, Disraeli, and Dickens. Jerry White's dazzling book is the first in 100 years to explore London's history over the 19th century as a whole. We see the destruction of old London and the city's unparalleled suburban expansion. We see how London absorbed people from all over Britain, from Europe, and the Empire. We see how Londoners worked and played. Most of all, we see how they tried to make sense of their city and make it a better place in which to live. Emerging clearly from this eloquent and richly-detailed overview is the London we can see today.
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© 2013,The Great Irish Famine was one of the most devastating humanitarian disasters of the nineteenth century. In a period of only five years, Ireland lost approximately 25% of its population through a combination of death and emigration. How could such a tragedy have occurred at the heart of the vast, and resource-rich, British Empire? Charity and the Great Hunger in Ireland explores this question by focusing on a particular, and lesser-known, aspect of the Famine: that being the extent to which people throughout the world mobilized to provide money, food and clothing to assist the starving Irish. This book considers how, helped by developments in transport and communications, newspapers throughout the world reported on the suffering in Ireland, prompting funds to be raised globally on an unprecedented scale. Donations came from as far away as Australia, China, India and South America and contributors emerged from across the various religious, ethnic, social and gender divides. Charity and the Great Hunger in Ireland traces the story of this international aid effort and uses it to reveal previously unconsidered elements in the history of the Famine in Ireland.