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The Life of Francis Drake
By A. E. W. Mason. 2018
The usual picture of Drake in men’s minds is a brave, bluff man of infinite audacity, a great patriot, a…
great sailor, a man to whom success came of its own accord.But this is only half the truth.He was always studying and learning. He reached success by the painful ways of failure. Few men have stood up to so many rebuffs in early manhood and snatched victory out of them. In many respects he was in advance of his time—in none perhaps more than the kindness and humanity he showed to native peoples.He confronted a vast world power determined to enslave England and destroy its claim to think as it thought and live in independence. He shattered that power by changing the naval strategy of England from defence to attack. And his theory of sea-warfare, developed by Nelson two centuries later, remains the principle of the Royal Navy today.It is this man of whose life A. E. W. Mason has written.
The Three Edwards
By Thomas B. Costain. 2018
Here is all the magnificent color, the sweep, the rich romance of a brilliant era. Here are the three unforgettable…
men who dominated it—and the strong-willed women who destroyed one of them and sought to enslave another.THE THREE EDWARDS, third in Thomas B. Costain's survey of Britain under the Plantagenets, covers the years between 1272 and 1377 when three Edwards ruled England. Edward I brought England out of the Middle Ages. Edward II had a tragic reign but gave his country Edward III, who ruled gloriously, if violently.First published in 1958, The Three Edwards, written by “one of the great storytellers of our time,” Thomas B. Costain, is the third volume in the brilliant series, including The Conquering Family, The Magnificent Century and The Last Plantagenets.“Deals with turbulent human experience...a wonderful story.”—New York Herald Tribune“So colorful and gusty is his style, so filled with phrases that grip and hold, no fiction he ever wrote holds the breathless interest of the reader more tightly...Here is an historical tapestry, filled with Color and movement...with kings and nobles, their wives and their doxies...with sound and fury unknown in our age of science without chivalry”—Miami Herald“DRAMATIC...THE FIGURES OF HISTORY COME MAGICALLY TO LIFE”—Ladies Home Journal“Under the touch of Mr. Costain’s brilliant pen, the era comes alive...fills his pages with a lively combination of biography, history, anecdote—yet seldom does he miss the mark of historical accuracy...not only exciting reading, but also stimulating and rewarding.”—Christian Science Monitor“Fascinating...Costain writes history with the pen of a novelist...This century yields inspiration in its richly narrative patterns.”—Virginia Kirkus“No events that Mr. Costain enlivens with his magic pen can fail to gain some luster from the contact.”—Saturday Review
British Slavery and its Abolition, 1823-1838
By William L Mathieson. 2018
Written by distinguished Scottish historian William L. Mathieson, this book is a study of British slavery and a narrative of…
the movement for its abolition, which began in 1823, succeeded partially in 1833, when slavery was said to have been abolished, and completely in 1838.British Slavery and Its Abolition, 1823-1838 focuses on slavery in the West Indian colonies—particularly British Guiana and British Honduras—which at the point of the book’s first publication in 1926 had not yet been covered comprehensively, as greater interest had been taken in American than in British slavery, “for it was far more extensive, lasted some thirty years longer, and culminated in a great civil war.”The author traces the movement, “which always aimed at abolition, but the immediate object of which was at first amelioration,” through despatches and reports which were printed from year to year as Parliamentary Papers; describes the introduction of foreign systems, especially the Spanish system; discusses the controversy between the Jamaica Assembly and Parliament to a conclusion; and, in the final chapter, also delves into the effects of emancipation.An invaluable addition to any history collection.
L'Ultimo Prefetto
By Franklin A. Díaz Lárez. 2019
Il 31 dicembre del 2001 sono state definitivamente abolite le prefetture del Venezuela. Si trattava di istituzioni regolamentate da una…
legge anticostituzionale, ingiusta e immorale: la legge dei vagabondi e dei malviventi. I prefetti erano autorizzati a ordinare l’arresto di una persona fino a 72 ore, o a farla rinchiudere a tempo indeterminato in terribili case di reclusione, senza alcun ordine giudiziario previo. Questa legge era stata ereditata dall’ultima dittatura che c’era stata in Venezuela, quella del Generale Marcos Pérez Jiménez, ed era stata quasi del tutto copiata da una simile che c’era in Spagna durante il franchismo. Secondo tale legge, tutti coloro che non avevano un lavoro noto potevano essere considerati vagabondi o malviventi, ed essere sanzionati dai prefetti. Perfino gli omosessuali venivano considerati in questo modo. Per quanto i fondamenti giuridici ed etici di questa legge fossero assurdi, essa era ancora in vigore, e i funzionari incaricati di applicarla non potevano rifiutarsi di farlo. Finché era in vigore, i prefetti erano obbligati ad applicarla e farla rispettare. Purtroppo o per fortuna, il destino ha voluto che fossi uno di quegli ultimi prefetti. Questi sono i racconti di alcuni dei casi più sorprendenti che mi sono trovato ad affrontare.
Russian Central Asia in the Works of Nikolai Karazin, 1842–1908: Ambivalent Triumph
By Elena Andreeva. 2021
“This book provides a deep reading of Nikolai Karazin’s works and his relationship with Central Asia. Elena Andreeva shows how…
Karazin’s prolific creations have much to tell us about Russian imperialism, colonial and local society as well as Russians’ self-identity as colonizers and Europeans. The work offers an original contribution to the scholarship on Russian imperial history and that of Central Asia, and Russian literary history also. Karazin’s importance—at the time and now—is appropriately highlighted.” - Jeff Sahadeo, Associate Professor, Carleton University, Canada “Elena Andreeva’s book resurrects a vital if forgotten figure from the Russian past: Nikolai Karazin, Russia’s Kipling, a multifaceted participant in Russian imperial expansion, whose fiction, journalism, ethnography and visual representations may well have done more than any agent of the Russian state to represent and popularize Russia’s conquest of Central Asia to a newly literate Russian public beyond the educated elites. Archivally based and carefully argued, Andreeva’s study of Karazin reveals the absence of any singular logic to Russian imperial expansion. In her analysis Karazin emerges as a vernacular enthusiast of empire who was able to reconcile a skeptical attitude towards tsarist autocracy with an idealized view of Russia’s 'civilizing' mission in the East.” - Harsha Ram, Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley, USA This book is dedicated to the literary and visual images of Central Asia in the works of the popular Russian artist Nikolai Karazin. It analyzes the ways Karazin’s discourse inflected, and was inflected by, the expansion of the Russian empire – and therefore sheds light on the place of art and culture in the Russian colonial enterprise. It is the first attempt to interpret Karazin’s images of Central Asia within Russian imperial networks and within the maze of the Russian national identity that informed them.
Lobola (Bridewealth) in Contemporary Southern Africa: Implications for Gender Equality
By Lovemore Togarasei, Ezra Chitando. 2021
This volume explores the multiple meanings and implications of lobola in Southern Africa. The payment of lobola (often controversially translated as…
‘bridewealth’) is an entrenched practice in most societies in Southern Africa. Although having a long tradition, of late there have been voices questioning its relevance in contemporary times while others vehemently defend the practice. This book brings together a range of scholars from different academic disciplines, national contexts, institutions, genders, and ethnic backgrounds to debate the relevance of lobola in contemporary southern African communities for gender equality.
O Último Prefeito
By Franklin A. Díaz Lárez. 2018
Em 31 de dezembro de 2001 foram definitivamente eliminadas as prefeituras da Venezuela. As prefeituras eram umas instituições criadas e…
regulamentadas por uma lei inconstitucional, injusta e imoral: a lei dos vagabundos e dos meliantes. Esta lei conferia aos prefeitos o poder de deter pessoas até setenta e duas horas e de impor a sua detenção por tempo indefinido em colônias especiais, sem qualquer intervenção judicial. Essa lei tinha sido herdada da última ditadura que tinha havido na Venezuela, a do General Marcos Pérez Jiménez. Era uma lei decalcada de outra similar que vigorou em Espanha durante a ditadura do Generalíssimo Francisco Franco. A lei estipulava que todos aqueles que não tivessem um ofício conhecido podiam ser considerados como vagabundos ou meliantes e como tal punidos pelos prefeitos. A lei era também aplicável aos homossexuais. Apesar das suas bases legais e éticas roçarem o absurdo, enquanto a lei se manteve em vigor os prefeitos eram obrigados a cumpri-la, a obedecê-la e a promover ativamente a sua aplicação. Por sorte ou infortúnio, coube-me no destino ser um dos últimos prefeitos. Aqui relembro e relato alguns dos casos mais surpreendentes com que tive de lidar.
The Incan Army: Volume II Strategy, Tactics and Logistics
By Leiner Cárdenas Fernández. 2018
In this second volume on the Incan army, we will explore its political and administrative organization and the excellent planning…
that allowed the Incan State to experience internal and external safety. Our main focus, however, will be mainly on the development of wartime technology and the application of advanced concepts and procedures of strategy, tactics and logistics. Although the times were quite different, the Incan army had put many of the activities that correspond to the functional fields of the Joint Chiefs of Staff into practice: personnel, intelligence, instruction, operations and logistics, similar to those of a modern army. For a more in-depth understanding, terms that are compatible with current concepts and military terminology will be used.
El Príncipe Loco (Volumen #1)
By Guy Boulianne. 2018
Este es el primero de una serie de libros que relatan hechos históricos a menudo olvidados o desconocidos por el…
público en general, hechos históricos relacionados con nombres, fechas, eventos y simbolismos que difícilmente pueden ser refutados. Como dice el dicho: "La fuerza de vida sagrada, invisible y poderosa, contiene la memoria del pasado y la visión del futuro. Permite que la creación se manifieste en la materia aquí y ahora ". Durante años, Guy Boulianne ha estado investigando la memoria colectiva y la memoria de su ser, con el fin de restaurar una verdad enterrada en lo más profundo en sí misma y en las profundidades de los recuerdos humanos. Capítulo tras capítulo, como un diario, lleva al lector en su Búsqueda del Grial y le da las claves para una mejor comprensión del mundo pasado, presente y futuro. Con él, la historia secreta de Francia resurge y se transporta a esta tierra de bienvenida que es la Nueva Francia. A lo largo de las páginas, el autor siempre restaura un poco más la historia de su familia, que tiene su origen en los tiempos más remotos y se remonta al príncipe Ursus, descendiente del rey merovingio Dagobert II, de la princesa visigoda Gisèle de Rhedae. y el exilarca Makhir ben Habibaï, representante del poderoso judaísmo babilónico. Esta marca de nobleza está inscrita en el escudo de armas de la familia: "Azul con una pata de un oso dorado, puesto en una banda". Al igual que Arthur en su destreza, con la espada Excalibur en la mano, Guy Boulianne separa a los dragones, -guardianes de los tesoros- y comparte con usted la médula fundamental de su investigación.
Sydney and Its Waterway in Australian Literary Modernism (Literary Urban Studies)
By Meg Brayshaw. 2021
This book examines literary representations of Sydney and its waterway in the context of Australian modernism and modernity in the…
interwar period. Then as now, Sydney Harbour is both an ecological wonder and ladened with economic, cultural, historical and aesthetic significance for the city by its shores. In Australia’s earliest canon of urban fiction, writers including Christina Stead, Dymphna Cusack, Eleanor Dark, Kylie Tennant and M. Barnard Eldershaw explore the myth and the reality of the city ‘built on water’. Mapping Sydney via its watery and littoral places, these writers trace impacts of empire, commercial capitalism, global trade and technology on the city, while drawing on estuarine logics of flow and blockage, circulation and sedimentation to innovate modes of writing temporally, geographically and aesthetically specific to Sydney’s provincial modernity. Contributing to the growing field of oceanic or aqueous studies, Sydney and its Waterway and Australian Modernism shows the capacity of water and human-water relations to make both generative and disruptive contributions to urban topography and narrative topology
Chitral Charlie: The Rise & Fall of Major General Charles Townshend
By N. S. Nash. 2010
Charles Townshend achieved international fame, as a captain, when he commanded the besieged garrison at Chitral (now Pakistan) in 1895.…
As a result, he became known as Chitral Charlie.Decorated by Queen Victoria and lionized by the British public, his passage up through the Army was assured and, in 1916, he was given command on 6th Indian Division and sent to Mesopotamia. Here he won a series of stunning victories as his ill-supported division swept all before it in a devastating advance up the River Tigris. He triumphed brilliantly at Kurna, Amara and Kut but then, against all the tenets of military common sense, he advanced up the River Tigris to take Baghdad. By now overreached, he was confronted by a determined Turkish foe. His Division was depleted and exhausted. Townshend withdrew to Kut, where he was besieged and forced into a humiliating surrender. The mistreatment of the British POWs by the Turks only added to Townshends shame.This fascinating and objective biography examines Townshends controversial conduct during and after the siege and assesses whether his dramatic fall from grace and popularity was fair.
First published in 1965, Envoy Extraordinary is a detailed biographical study of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and her contribution to India.…
Drawing on a wealth of interviews, press-cuttings, speeches, letters, and more, the book delves into Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit’s political and diplomatic career and explores her personal values and ideals. It adopts an objective and truthful approach that does not steer away from the more difficult or disconcerting aspects of Pandit’s private and public life. In doing so, it provides a thorough study of her career and a detailed insight into India’s political history.
Examining responses to migration and settlement in Britain from the Irish Famine up to Brexit, The Discourse of Repatriation looks…
at how concepts of removal evolved in this period, and the varied protagonists who have articulated these ideas in different contexts. Analysing the relationship between discourse and action, Renshaw explores how ideas and language originating on the peripheries of debate on migration and belonging can permeate the mainstream and transform both discussion and policy. The book sheds light both on how the migrant ‘other’ has been viewed in Britain, historically and contemporaneously, and more broadly how the relationship between state, press, and populace has developed from the early Victorian period onwards. It identifies key junctures where the concept of the removal of ‘othered’ groups has crossed over from the rhetorical to the actual, and considers why this was the case. Based on extensive original archival research, the book reassesses modern British history through the lens of the most polarised attitudes to immigration and demographic change. This book will be of use to readers with an interest in migration, diaspora, the development of populism and political extremes, and more broadly the history of modern Britain.
The Loss of the "Trades Increase": An Early Modern Maritime Catastrophe (Haney Foundation Series)
By Richmond Barbour. 2021
Was it the Titanic of its age?Christened by an optimistic King James I in December 1609, the Trades Increase was…
the greatest English merchant vessel of the Jacobean era—a magnificent ship embodying the hopes of the nascent East India Company to claim a commanding share of the Eastern trade. But the ship's launch failed when it proved too large to exit from its dock, an ill-fated start to an expedition that would end some three years later, when a dangerously leaking Trades Increase at last reached the shores of Java. While its smaller companion vessel would sail home with handsome profits for investors, the rotting hull of the great ship itself was beyond repair. The Trades Increase and nearly all who sailed it perished wretchedly on the far side of the world.The terrible pattern proven by this voyage, with profits to an elite few in London stained by catastrophic losses in equipment and personnel abroad, ignited rancorous controversy in England over the human, moral, and economic costs of such commerce. In The Loss of the "Trades Increase" Richmond Barbour has written an engrossing account of the tragic expedition and of global capitalism at its hour of emergence.Its sources fragmented among journals, minutes, and letters in the archives of the East India Company, the full story of the Trades Increase is told here for the first time. Earlier writers minimized the loss as a temporary setback and necessary sacrifice on the road to empire. In a work informed by corporate history and postcolonial theory, Barbour sees the saga of the voyage, and all that produced and justified it, differently: as an expression of the structural conflicts, operational risks, and material incapacities that haunted and ultimately unraveled the British Empire—and that destabilize multinational corporations, global markets, and our common biosphere to this day.
This book investigates the policies of the Thatcher, Major and Blair governments and their approaches towards concentration of economic and…
political power. The 1979–2007 British governments have variously been described as liberal or, to use a political insult and a favourite academic label, neoliberal. One of the stated objectives of the Thatcher, Major and Blair governments—albeit with differing focal points—was to disperse power and to empower the individual. This was also a consistent theme of the first generation of neoliberals, who saw monopolies, vested interests and concentration more generally as the ‘great enemy of democracy’. Under Thatcher and Major, Conservatives sought to liberalize the economy and spread ownership through policies like Right to Buy and privatisation. New Labour dispersed political power with its devolution agenda, granted operational independence to the Bank of England and put in place a seemingly robust antitrust framework. All governments during the 1979–2007 period pursued choice in public services. Yet our modern discourse characterises Britain as beset by endemic power concentration, in markets and politics. What went wrong? How did so-called neoliberal governments, which invoked liberty and empowerment, fail to disperse power and allow concentration to continue, recur or arise? The book will be of interest to students and scholars of contemporary British history, political economy and politics, as well as specific areas of study such as Thatcherism and New Labour.
In recent decades, there has been a growing recognition of the significance of the supernatural in a Victorian context. Studies…
of nineteenth-century spiritualism, occultism, magic, and folklore have highlighted that Victorian England was ridden with spectres and learned magicians. Despite this growing body of scholarship, little historiographical work has addressed the Devil. This book demonstrates the significance of the Devil in a Victorian context, emphasising his pervasiveness and diversity. Drawing on a rich array of primary material, including theological and folkloric works, fiction, newspapers and periodicals, and broadsides and other ephemera, it uses the diabolic to explore the Victorians' complex and ambivalent relationship with the supernatural. Both the Devil and hell were theologically contested during the nineteenth century, with an increasing number of both clergymen and laypeople being discomfited by the thought of eternal hellfire. Nevertheless, the Devil continued to play a role in the majority of English denominations, as well as in folklore, spiritualism, occultism, popular culture, literature, and theatre. The Devil and the Victorians will appeal to readers interested in nineteenth-century English cultural and religious history, as well as the darker side of the supernatural.
Fighting and Writing: The Rhodesian Army at War and Postwar
By Luise White. 2021
In Fighting and Writing Luise White brings the force of her historical insight to bear on the many war memoirs…
published by white soldiers who fought for Rhodesia during the 1964–1979 Zimbabwean liberation struggle. In the memoirs of white soldiers fighting to defend white minority rule in Africa long after other countries were independent, White finds a robust and contentious conversation about race, difference, and the war itself. These are writings by men who were ambivalent conscripts, generally aware of the futility of their fight—not brutal pawns flawlessly executing the orders and parroting the rhetoric of a racist regime. Moreover, most of these men insisted that the most important aspects of fighting a guerrilla war—tracking and hunting, knowledge of the land and of the ways of African society—were learned from Black playmates in idealized rural childhoods. In these memoirs, African guerrillas never lost their association with the wild, even as white soldiers boasted of bringing Africans into the intimate spaces of regiment and regime.
On Revolution: Lying In Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts On Politics And Revolution (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics Ser.)
By Hannah Arendt, Jonathan Schell. 1965
Hannah Arendt’s penetrating observations on the modern world have been fundamental to our understanding of our political landscape, both its…
history and future. Published in the years between Arendt’s seminal texts The Origins of Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem, On Revolution is a unique and fascinating look at violent political change and its relationship to individual freedom, from the eighteenth-century rebellions in America and France to the explosive changes of the twentieth century. Illuminating and prescient, this timeless work will fascinate anyone who seeks to decipher the forces that shape our tumultuous age. .
High on Rebellion: Inside the Underground at Max's Kansas City
By Yvonne Sewall-Ruskin. 1998
With a foreword by Lou Reed: The definitive oral history of Max's Kansas City, favorite hangout of the most outrageous…
and notorious characters of New York's 1960s and '70s underground cultural scene From its opening in December 1965 on Park Avenue South, Max's Kansas City, a hybrid restaurant, bar, nightclub, and art gallery, was the boisterous meeting spot for famous--or soon-to-be-famous--figures in New York's underground art, music, literary, film, and fashion scenes. Max's regulars included Andy Warhol (and his superstars such as Viva, Ultra Violet, Edie Sedgwick, Gerard Malanga, Holly Woodlawn, and Candy Darling), Mick Jagger, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Bob Dylan, Jane Fonda, and dozens more. A hotbed of drugs, sex, and creative collaboration, Max's was the place to see and be seen among the city's cultural elite for nearly two decades. With reminiscences from the likes of Alice Cooper, Bebe Buell, Betsey Johnson, Leee Black Childers, Holly Woodlawn, and John Chamberlain, along with Max's owner Mickey Ruskin and several waitresses and bartenders, this vivid oral history evokes an unforgettable place where a spontaneous striptease, a brawl over the meaning of art, and an early performance by the Velvet Underground were all possibilities on any given night. High on Rebellion dazzles with rare photos and other Max's memorabilia, and firsthand accounts of legendary nights, chance encounters, romances sparked and extinguished, and stars being born.
Narratives, Routes and Intersections in Pre-Modern Asia
By Radhika Seshan. 2017
This book traces connections in pre-modern Asia by looking at different worlds across geography, history and society. It examines how…
regions were connected by people, families, trade and politics as well as how they were maintained and remembered. The volume analyses these intersections of memory and narrative, of people and places and the routes that took people to these places, using a variety of sources. It also studies whether these intersections remain in later and present times, and their larger impact on our understanding of history. The narratives cover several journeys drawn from archaeology, texts and cultural imagination: trade routes, marts, fairs, forts, religious pilgrimages, inscriptions, calligraphy and coinages spanning diverse regions, including India–Tibet–British forays, India–Malay intersections, corporate enterprise in the Indian Ocean, impacts of slave trade in Southeast Asia shaped by the Dutch East India company, movements and migrations around Indo-Iranian borderlands and those in western and southern India. The book will greatly interest scholars and researchers of history and archaeology, cultural studies and literature.