In this "informative and inspiring volume" (Chicago Tribune),Robert Harvey reconstructs in vivid detail the gripping story ofLatin America's independence and those who made it possible.Treated with contempt by their Spanish overlords, given todissipation and grandiose proclamations, these fearless mennonetheless achieved military feats unsurpassed elsewhere inhistory. The aristocratic Simón Bolívar led his guerilla armiesthrough swamp, jungle, and Andean ice to surprise his enemies andliberate most of northern South America. The inarticulate SanMartín joined Bernardo O'Higgins, illegitimate son of a Spanishviceroy, to do the same in the south. These and five others wagedthe war for freedom against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars,the American Revolution, the collapse of the Spanish Empire, andthe revolutionary ferment of the nineteenth century. Despite thesuccess of their revolutions, all seven liberators died in poverty,disgrace, or oblivion. This fascinating and dramatic story takes in a
From Solon to Socrates is a magisterial narrativeintroduction to what is generally regarded as the most importantperiod of Greek history. Stressing the unity of Greek history andthe centrality of Athens, Victor Ehrenberg covers a rich anddiverse range of political, economic, military and cultural issuesin the Greek world, from the early history of the Greeks, includingearly Sparta and the wars with Persia, to the ascendancy of Athensand the Peloponnesian War.
Lawyer, philosopher, statesman and defender of Rome'sRepublic, Cicero was a master of eloquence, and his pure literaryand oratorical style and strict sense of morality have been apowerful influence on European literature and thought for over twothousand years in matters of politics, philosophy, and faith. Thisselection demonstrates the diversity of his writings, and includesletters to friends and statesmen on Roman life and politics; thevitriolic Second Philippic Against Antony; and, his two most famousphilosophical treatises, "On Duties" and "On Old Age" - acelebration of his own declining years. Written at a time of brutalpolitical and social change, Cicero's lucid ethical writings formedthe foundation of the Western liberal tradition in political andmoral thought that continues to this day.
Case one: A little girl goes missing in the night. Case two: A beautiful young office worker falls victim to amaniac's apparently random attack. Case three: A new mother finds herself trapped in a hell of herown making - with a very needy baby and a very demanding husband -until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape. Thirty years after the first incident, as private investigatorJackson Brodie begins investigating all three cases, startlingconnections and discoveries emerge . . .
A unique look at the complex relationship between two ofAmerica?’s foremost World War II leaders The first book ever to explore the relationship between GeorgeMarshall and Dwight Eisenhower, Partners in Command eloquentlytackles a subject that has eluded historians for years. As MarkPerry charts the crucial impact of this duo on victory in World WarII and later as they lay the foundation for triumph in the ColdWar, he shows us an unlikely, complex collaboration at the heart ofdecades of successful American foreign policy?—and shatters many ofthe myths that have evolved about these two great men and theissues that tested their alliance. As exciting to read as it isvitally informative, this work is a signal accomplishment.
A visual journey through 3,000 years of naval warfare-now inpaperback! From the clash of galleys in Ancient Greece to deadlyencounters between nuclear-powered submarines in the 20th century,explore every aspect of the story of naval warfare on, under, andabove the sea.
Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod and The Basque History of the World , here turns his attention toa common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt.The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the verybeginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part ofthe history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served ascurrency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes andcities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspiredrevolutions. Populated by colorful characters and filled with anunending series of fascinating details, Kurlansky's kaleidoscopichistory is a supremely entertaining, multi-layered masterpiece.
Vivid, powerful and absorbing, this is a first-person accountof one of the most startling military episodes in history: theoverthrow of Montezuma's doomed Aztec Empire by the ruthless HernanCortes and his band of adventurers. Bernal Diaz del Castillo,himself a soldier under Cortes, presents a fascinatingly detailedde*ion of the Spanish landing in Mexico in 1520 and theiramazement at the city, the exploitation of the natives for gold andother treasures, the expulsion and flight of the Spaniards, theirregrouping and eventual capture of the Aztec capital.
General George S. Patton and General Erwin Rommel. They servedtheir countries through two World Wars. Their temperaments, both onand off the battlefield, couldn't be further apart from eachother-but their approaches to modern warfare were verysimilar. Written by a prominent military historian, Patton andRommel takes a provocative look at both figures, intertwiningthe stories of the paths they took and the decisions they madeduring the course of the Second World War-and compares the livesand careers of two men whose military tactics changed the course ofhistory.
Pausanias's (c. 143-176) account of every Greek city andsanctuary includes historical introductions and a record of localcustoms and beliefs. This volume describes southern Greece,including Olympia, Sparta, Arcadia, and Bassae
On 8 March 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. The ships, some nearly five hundred feet long, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di’s loyal eunuch admirals. Their orders were ‘to proceed all the way to the end of the earth’. The voyage would last for two years and by the time the fleet returned, China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. And so the great ships were left to rot, and the records of their journey destroyed. And with them, the knowledge that the Chinese had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan, reached America seventy years before Columbus, and Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook. The result of fifteen years research, 1421 is Gavin Menzies’ enthralling account of this remarkable journey, of his discoveries and persuasive evidence to support them: ancient maps, precise navigational knowledge, astronomy, surviving accounts of Chinese explorers and later Europ
In this well-written and well-researched social history F.R.Cowell succeeds in making Life in Ancient Rome alive and dynamic.The combination of acute historical detail and supplementaryillustrations makes this book perfectly suited for the studentpreparing to explore the classics, as well as the tourist preparingto explore twentieth-century Rome. Lucid and engaging, Life InAncient Rome is for anyone seeking familiarity with the greatnessthat was Rome.
In this brilliant synthesis of social, political, and culturalhistory, Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper present a vivid andcompelling portrayal of the City of Lights after its liberation.Paris became the diplomatic battleground in the opening stages ofthe Cold War. Against this volatile political backdrop, everyaspect of life is portrayed: scores were settled in a rough and uneven justice, black marketers grewrich on the misery of the population, and a growing number ofintellectual luminaries and artists— including Hemingway, Beckett,Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Cocteau, andPicasso—contributed new ideas and a renewed vitality to this extraordinary moment intime.
This is the first systematic exploration of the nature andextent of sympathy for Nazi Germany at American universities duringthe 1930s. Universities were highly influential in shaping publicopinion and many of the nation's most prominent universityadministrators refused to take a principled stand against theHitler regime. Universities welcomed Nazi officials to campus andparticipated enthusiastically in student exchange programs withNazified universities in Germany. American educators helped NaziGermany improve its image in the West as it intensified itspersecution of the Jews and strengthened its armed forces. Thestudy contrasts the significant American grassroots protest againstNazism that emerged as soon as Hitler assumed power with campusquiescence and administrators' frequently harsh treatment of thosestudents and professors who challenged their determination tomaintain friendly relations with Nazi Germany.
For the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, The Library ofAmerica re-issues the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant and WilliamTecumseh Sherman in a handsome, newly designed case. An ailingGrant wrote his Personal Memoirs to secure his family'sfuture. In doing so, the Civil War's greatest general won himself aunique place in American letters. John Keegan has called it"perhaps the most revelatory autobiography of high command to existin any language." The Library of America's edition of Grant's Memoirs includes 175 of his letters to Lincoln, Sherman, andhis wife, Julia, among others. Hailed as a prophet of modern warand condemned as a harbinger of modern barbarism, William T.Sherman is the most controversial general of the Civil War. "War iscruelty, and you cannot refine it," he wrote in fury to theConfederate mayor of Atlanta, and his memoir is filled with dozensof such wartime exchanges and a fascinating account of the famousmarch through Georgia and the Carolinas.
A funny, raucous, and delightfully dirty history of 1,000years of bedroom-hopping secrets and scandals of Britain’sroyals. Insatiable kings, lecherous queens, kissing cousins, and wantonconsorts—history has never been so much fun. Royal unions have always been the stuff of scintillating gossip,from the passionate Plantagenets to Henry VIII’s alarming headcount of wives and mistresses, to the Sapphic crushes of Mary andAnne Stuart right on up through the scandal-blighted coupling ofPrince Charles and Princess Diana. Thrown into loveless, arrangedmarriages for political and economic gain, many royals were drivento indulge their pleasures outside the marital bed, engaging indelicious flirtations, lurid love letters, and rampant sex withvoluptuous and willing partners. This nearly pathological lust made for some of the mosttitillating scandals in Great Britain’s history. Hardly harmless,these affairs have disrupted dynastic alliances, endangered lives,and most of all, fed the sala
Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empirecompresses thirteen turbulent centuries into an epic narrative shotthrough with insight, irony and incisive character analysis.Sceptical about Christianity, sympathetic to the barbarian invadersand the Byzantine Empire, constantly aware of how political leadersoften achieve the exact opposite of what they intend, Gibbon wasboth alert to the broad pattern of events and significant revealingdetails.
The best-selling novelist exposes the inner workings of thenuclear submarine, the core of America's nuclear arsenal, usingpreviously unrevealed diagrams and photographs along with formerlytop-secret information. 500,000 first printing. $200,000 ad/promo.--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
This is the definitive visual guide to 5,000 years of Britishhistory. "The History of Britain Ireland" traces the keyevents that have shaped the British Isles. From the Elizabethan ageof Shakespeare to the Iraq and Afghan wars of the 21st century,this beautifully illustrated book offers a definitive visualchronicle of the most colourful and defining episodes in Britishhistory. Packed with visually arresting illustrations and clear,concise text, you can now explore the long and fascinating story ofthe British Isles. It includes profiles of key people in historysuch as Geoffrey Chaucer, Alfred the Great, Charles Dickens, QueenElizabeth I and Winston Churchill. "The History of Britain Ireland" is ideal as a family reference for the home as well as akey history companion for schools.
Fascinating real-life facts about the Marines offer acompelling story and a unique insider's view of this hallowedbranch of the Armed Forces and the men and women who serve onAmerica's front lines, in an in-depth look at the United StatesMarine Corps.
Edward Gibbon's six-volume History of the Decline and Fall ofthe Roman Empire (1776-88) is among the most magnificent andambitious narratives in European literature. Its subject is thefate of one of the world's greatest civilizations over thirteencenturies - its rulers, wars and society, and the events that ledto its disastrous collapse. Here, in volumes one and two, Gibboncharts the vast extent and constitution of the Empire from thereign of Augustus to 395 ad. And in a controversial critique, heexamines the early Church, with fascinating accounts of the firstChristian and last pagan emperors, Constantine and Julian.
The World Literature series reproduces the greatest books the world over with only the highest production standards. History, philosophy, psychology, political theory, fiction, and ancient texts are now accessible to everyone at an extremely affordable price. This work recounts Marco Polo's journey to the eastern court of Kublai Khan, the chieftan of the Mongol empire which traverses the Asian continent, but which was virtually unknown to Polo's contemporaries. It encompasses a 24-year period starting in 1271, detailing his travels.
