The fifty most important speeches of all time: their context,history, and meaning for our world The speeches remembered by history are rarely remembered incontext; but it was almost always the context, not the speechitself, that made each address so significant. Terry Golway hasselected fifty speeches that changed the world through the sheerpower of their oratory. From Moses to Mandela and others fromacross time and around the world, Golway's selections are eachilluminated with an insightful essay setting the speech squarely inits historical contexts and detailing its impact and consequences.In doing so, Golway allows us to fully understand their importanceand effect. Including speeches from Jesus, Mohammed, Cicero, Pericles,Cromwell, Washington, Pope Urban II, John Winthrop, Kennedy,Emperor Hirohito, Barbara Jordan, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev,Robespierre, Patrick Henry, Queen Elizabeth I, Reagan, Mandela,FDR, Hitler, Churchill, Barack Obama and many more, this book is anhistoric achievement.

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.

Since its first publication in 1945? Lord Russell's A History of Western Philosophy has been universally acclaimed as the outstanding one-volume work on the subject -- unparalleled in its comprehensiveness, its clarity, its erudition, its grace and wit. In seventy-six chapters he traces philosophy from the rise of Greek civilization to the emergence of logical analysis in the twentieth century. Among the philosophers considered are: Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, the Atomists, Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Cynics, the Sceptics, the Epicureans, the Stoics, Plotinus, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Benedict, Gregory the Great, John the Scot, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Occam, Machiavelli, Erasmus, More, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, the Utilitarians, Marx, Bergson, James, Dewey, and lastly the philosophers with whom Lord Russell himself is most closely associated -- Cantor, Frege, and

THIS UNIQUE TIMECHART CELEB RATES THE 100 YEAR LEGEND OF HARLEY-DAVIDSON MOTORCYCLES 11-foot foldout chronological Timechart showing a full color illustrated history of Harley-Davidson.

To Shakespeare's contemporaries, Richard II was a balanceddramatisation of the central political and constitutional issue ofthe time, how to cope with an unjust ruler. But over the lastcentury or so, the play came to be regarded as the poetic fall of atragic hero. The Introduction to this edition provides a fullcontext for both the Shakespearean and the modern views of KingRichard's fall. For this updated edition the editor has added a newsection to the Introduction which takes account of the number ofimportant professional theatre productions and the large output ofscholarly criticism on the play which have appeared in recentyears. The Reading List has also been revised and augmented.

A war that started under questionable pretexts. A presidentwho is convinced of his country’s might and right. A military andpolitical stalemate with United States troops occupying a foreignland against a stubborn and deadly insurgency. The time is the 1840s. The enemy is Mexico. And the war is one ofthe least known and most important in both Mexican and UnitedStates history—a war that really began much earlier and whoseconsequences still echo today. Acclaimed historian David A. Clarypresents this epic struggle for a continent for the first time fromboth sides, using original Mexican and North Americansources. To Mexico, the yanqui illegals pouring into her territories ofTexas and California threatened Mexican sovereignty and security.To North Americans, they manifested their destiny to rule thecontinent. Two nations, each raising an eagle as her standard,blustered and blundered into a war because no one on either sidewas brave enough to resist the march into it. In Eagles and Empi

The complete historical works of the greatest chronicler ofthe Roman Empire in a wholly revised and updated translation. A brilliant narrator and a master stylist, Tacitus served asadministrator and senator, a career that gave him an intimate viewof the empire at its highest levels, and of the dramatic, violent,and often bloody events of the first century. In the Annals, hewrites about Augustus Caesar’s death and observes the innerworkings of the courts of the emperors Tiberius and Nero. In theHistories, he describes an empire in tumult, four emperors reigningin one year, each overthrown by the next. The Agricola, a biographyof Tacitus’s father-in-law, Julius Agricola—the most celebratedgovernor of Roman Britain—is the first detailed account of theisland that would eventually rule over a quarter of the earth. Andin the Germania, the famed warrior-barbarians of ancient Germanycome richly to life.

The Great Pyramid's eerily precise architecture has forcenturies both astounded and puzzled archaeologists and has givenrise to numerous modern fantasies concerning the so-called 'Mysteryof the Pyramids'. Sweeping away centuries of myth and confusion,John Romer describes for the first time exactly how the GreatPyramid was designed and built. He argues that the pyramid makersworked from a single plan whose existence has long been doubted andeven denied by scholars. Moreover, the Great Pyramid's uniquearchitecture is integral to the way it was built, and for itsbuilders the tasks of construction and design were not separate asthey are now. By placing this awesome monument in its genuinecontemporary context, this book underlines the extraordinarytalents and the originality of the ancient Egyptians at the time ofKing Khufu. Describes for the first time exactly how the Great Pyramid wasdesigned and built ? A product of the most recent research anddecades of personal study by an author who is very well

A groundbreaking book, this unprecedented study is theauthoritative account of the best-known intelligence organisationin theworld. Essential reading for anyone interested in the historyof espionage, the two world wars, modern British government and theconductof international relations in the first half of thetwentieth century, MI6:The History of the Secret IntelligenceService 1909-1949is a uniquely important examination of the roleand significance of intelligence in the modern world.

FORT SUMTER TO PERRYVILLE "Anyone who wants to relive the Civil War, as thousands ofAmericans apparently do, will go through this volume withpleasure.... Years from now, Foote's monumental narrative mostlikely will continue to be read and remembered as a classic of itskind."--New York Herald Tribune Book Review "Here, for a certainty, is one of the great historical narrativesof our century, a unique and brilliant achievement, one that mustbe firmly placed in the ranks of the masters."--Van Allen Bradley,Chicago Daily News

Amazon.com Review From primordial nothingness to this very moment, A Short Historyof Nearly Everything reports what happened and how humans figuredit out. To accomplish this daunting literary task, Bill Bryson useshundreds of sources, from popular science books to interviews withluminaries in various fields. His aim is to help people like him,who rejected stale school textbooks and dry explanations, toappreciate how we have used science to understand the smallestparticles and the unimaginably vast expanses of space. With hisdistinctive prose style and wit, Bryson succeeds admirably. ThoughA Short History clocks in at a daunting 500-plus pages and coversthe same material as every science book before it, it readssomething like a particularly detailed novel (albeit without aplot). Each longish chapter is devoted to a topic like the age ofour planet or how cells work, and these chapters are grouped intolarger sections such as "The Size of the Earth" and "Life Itself."Bryson chats with experts like Ri

FREDERICKSBURG TO MERIDIAN "Gettysburg...is described with such meticulous attention toaction, terrain, time, and the characters of the various commandersthat I understand, at last, what happened in that battle.... Mr.Foote has an acute sense of the relative importance of events and anovelist's skill in directing the reader's attention to the men andthe episodes that will influence the course of the whole war,without omitting items which are of momentary interest. Hisorganization of facts could hardly bebetter."-- Atlantic

Edward III is a major new addition to the Shakespearean canon.Melchiori claims that Shakespeare is the author of a significantpart of the play, the extent of which is discussed in detail. Theintroduction explores the play's historical background and itsrelationship to the early cycle of history plays. The commentaryexamines in depth the play's linguistic and poetic features, whilean extensive appendix on the use of sources explains the stages ofits composition.

At the end of the American Revolution, sixty thousandAmericans loyal to the British cause fled the United States andbecame refugees throughout the British Empire. This groundbreakingbook offers the first global history of the loyalist exodus toCanada, the Caribbean, Sierra Leone, India, and beyond. Followingextraordinary journeys like the one of Elizabeth Johnston, a youngmother from Georgia, who led her growing family to Britain,Jamaica, and Canada, questing for a home; black loyalists such asDavid George, who escaped from slavery in Virginia and went on tofound Baptist congregations in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone; andMohawk Indian leader Joseph Brant, who tried to find autonomy forhis people in Ontario, Liberty’s Exiles challengesconventional understandings about the founding of the United Statesand the shaping of the postrevolutionary world. Based on originalresearch on four continents, this book is at once an intimatenarrative history and a provocative new analysis—a story about thepast that

I have never read a better, more vivid, more understandableaccount of the savage battling between Grant's and Lee's armies....Foote stays with the human strife and suffering, and unlike mostSouthern commentators, he does not take sides. In objectivity, inrange, in mastery of detail in beauty of language and feeling forthe people involved, this work surpasses anything else on thesubject.... It stands alongside the work of the best ofthem.-- New Republic

At the time this remarkable work was written, Neo-Platonism was only just beginning to regain intellectual favor. Today, of course, this brilliant book is celebrated as a classic example of New Age scholarship.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist and best-selling author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree gives a bold, timely, and surprising picture of the state of globalization in the twenty-first century. In this brilliant #1 bestseller, "the most important columnist in America today" (Walter Russell Mead, The New York Times) demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Thomas L. Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. The World Is Flat is the timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.

The smog beast wafted into downtown Los Angeles on July 26,1943. Nobody knew what it was. Secretaries rubbed their eyes.Traffic cops seemed to disappear in the mysterious haze. WereJapanese saboteurs responsible? A reckless factory? The truth wasmuch worse--it came from within, from Southern California'sburgeoning car-addicted, suburban lifestyle. Smogtown is the story of pollution, progress, and how anoptimistic people confronted the epic struggle against airbornepoisons barraging their hometowns. With wit, verve, and a freshlook at history, California based journalists Chip Jacobs andWilliam J. Kelly highlight the bold personalities involved, thecorporate- tainted science, the terrifying health costs, theattempts at cleanup, and how the smog battle helped mold themodern-day culture of Los Angeles. There are scofflaws aplenty anddirty deals, plus murders, suicides, spiritual despair, and anever-present paranoia about mass disaster. Brimming with historic photographs, forgotten anecdotes, a

Since its publication twenty years ago, J. M. Roberts'smonumental History of the World has remained the "unrivaled WorldHistory of our day" (A. J. P. Taylor), selling more than a quarterof a million copies worldwide. Now in an equally masterfulperformance, Roberts displays his consummate skills of expositionin telling the tale of the European continent, from its Neolithicorigins and early civilizations of the Aegean to the advent of thetwenty-first century. A sweeping and entertaining history, ThePenguin History of Europe comprehensively traces the development ofEuropean identity over the course of thousands of years, rangingacross empires and religions, economics, science, and the arts.Roberts's astute and lucid analyses of the disparate spheres oflearning that have shaped European civilization and ourunderstanding of it make The Penguin History of Europe a remarkablejourney through the last two centuries.

Instead of the dying Old Regime, Schama presents an ebullientcountry, vital and inventive, infatuated with novelty andtechnology--a strikingly fresh view of Louis XVI's France. A NewYork Times bestseller in hardcover. 200 illustrations.

We were in the closet. We all had our weapons loaded. We sat there and waited for the doorbell to ring," said Salvatore Vitale, a slender New York mobster known as Good-Looking Sal. "We left the door open a smidge to look out." The ringing of the bell at the private social club’s entrance signaled the arrival of the first of the invited guests. Vito Rizzuto crouched low, peeking out from his vantage point. Through the swelling crowd and loud chatter from tough men all accustomed to having their say, Vito kept his eyes on one man, Gerlando Sciascia, a fellow Sicilian who was a long-time Rizzuto family friend. Breathing deeply beneath his mask, Vito watched for the secret signal that would draw him from the closet, a signal that came when Sciascia slowly ran the fingers of his lean, right hand through the silver hair on the side of his head. That simple act of preening brought mayhem to the social club and radically changed the balance of power. "Don’t anybody move. This is a holdup," V

A unique guide to every UNESCO World Heritage site. The global list has proved a valuable tool in the battle to preserve the world's heritage. Managed by the World Heritage Committee with strict criteria, only the world's most spectacular and extraordinary sites making it onto the List. Major sites Details of all 878 UNESCO sites including!.the remarkable Dazu Rock Carving of China!!the last substantial expanse of monsoon forest in Thailand, the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex!.Kilimanjaro National Park in Tanzania which contains the highest mountain in Africa one of the largest volcanoes in the world!.one of the greatest Mayan temples Tikal in Guatemala!the legendary Acropolis in Athens!..the ancient Nabataean city of Petra in Jordan!.the unique ecosystem of the Serengeti, Tanzania. / Over 650 colour photographs / De*ions of 878 UNESCO World Heritage sites / Location map for every 878 site Background The World Heritage List includes properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the