Ebooks de historia, página 94 de 2229

John Griggs four volume life of Lloyd George is one of the great political biographies. This, the final volume, opens with Lloyd Georges succession to the Premiership in December 1916, when Britain faced starvation and defeat through the German U-boat campaign, its allies France, Russia and Italy were tottering, the Liberal Party was bitterly divided and unrest in Ireland was growing. Worst of all, military chiefs regarded themselves as at least the equals of the government. To resolve these crises required ruthlessness, political genius and leadership of the highest order. In this thrilling book we see one of Britains most resourceful Prime Ministers in brilliant action, steering his country to victory.It is a tragedy John Grigg didnt live to complete his magnum opus but what exists is a masterpiece. Faber Finds is reissuing the four volumes: The Young Lloyd George, Lloyd George: The Peoples Champion 1902-1911, Lloyd George: From Peace to War 1912-1916, Lloyd George: War Leader 1916-1918.With the volume, Grigg crowns the edifice of one of the great biographies of our time. Anthony Howard - Sunday TimesA fitting climax to a path-breaking study. John Campbell, Independent, Books of the YearSuperb... the fullest account we shall ever have of Lloyd Georges career as a wartime Prime Minister. It is a fascinating story and is told with panache, vigour, clarity and impartiality by a great biographer... brings out as never before the brilliance of Lloyd Georges finest hour. Robert Blake, Evening StandardA major publishing event... Grigg mingles factual precision, high-interest value and judgements which are mostly as wise as they are forthright. Roy Jenkins, Sunday Telegraph, Books of the YearGripping... essential... This wonderful biography, clear and authoritative, every page a lesson in how to write narrative history, well up to its preceding volumes, recreates both a time of acute national danger and an extraordinary man. Max Egremont, Financial Times

Rufus Isaacs was in his day the first commoner to rise to the rank of marquess since the Duke of Wellington. Born into a lively Jewish family, he left school aged 14, yet made his name as a brilliant QC before being elected to the Commons as a Liberal in 1904. Smeared during the Marconi scandal of 1913 he survived to be appointed Lord Chief Justice, and elevated to the peerage in 1914. He would go on to be Ambassador to the United States, Viceroy of India, and Foreign Secretary. For this major work, first published in 1982, Denis Judd drew upon private papers in order to place Rufus Isaacs complex career in perspective and so provide an overdue reassessment of one of the most outstanding public figures of the twentieth century.Excellent. A.J.P. Taylor, ObserverA lucid and revealing book Geoffrey Moorhouse, TimesThe best biography [of Lord Reading] to have appeared so far. Robert Blake, Evening Standard

This history of Ireland is inextricably linked with our relationship with the land. In this book, based on extensive research and investigation, the authors examine some of the key figures in Irish agrarian agitation and change. Looking at the Land League, the Knights of the Plough, the perception and reality of the Irish Landlords, this is an important book which makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the nature of the land question in Irish history.

Roman towns and their history are generally regarded as being the preserve of the archaeologist or the economic historian. In this famous, unusual and radical book which touches on such disparate themes as psychology and urban architecture, Joseph Rykwert has considered them as works of art. His starting point is the mythical, historical and ritual texts in which their foundation is recounted rather than the excavated remains, such texts having parallels not merely in ancient Greece but also further afield Mesopotamia, India and China. To achieve his reading of the Roman town, he has invoked the comparative method of the anthropologists, and he examines first of all the Etruscan rite, a group of ceremonies by which all, or practically all, Roman towns were founded. The basic institutions of the town, its walls and gates, its central shrines and its forum are all of them part of a pattern to which the rituals and the myths that accompanied them provide clues. Like in other closed societies, these rituals and myths served to create a secure home for the citizen of Rome and to make him feel part of his city and place it firmly in a knowable universe. It is refreshing to look at standard themes of the history of urban design from a nonrational point of view, to see surveyors as quasi priests and orthogonal planning as a sophisticated technique touched by divine mystery . . .. Rykwerts lasting worth will be to wrench us away from rationalist simplicities, and to make us face the fundamental disquietof the human spirit in its claim to a permanent place on the land. Spiro Kostoff, Journal of the Society Architectural Historians

Last updated in 2001, John Rentouls acclaimed Tony Blair: Prime Minister returns with an extensive new assessment of Blairs premiership after 9/11 - from the Iraq war and relations with Gordon Brown to his departure from Downing Street and political afterlife. Well written, thoroughly researched and informed by the balanced and subtle insights of a skilled journalist... Especially good on the influences that have shaped Mr Blair.EconomistUtterly scrupulous in presenting the [] information... [W]hen Rentoul occasionally presents his own judgements, they can rarely be faulted. Peter Oborne, Sunday ExpressWritten with care, thought... and a fine understanding of political nuances. Ben PimlottAn extraordinary achievement, flashing with a peculiarly devastating form of sympathy. Craig Brown, Mail on SundayWith further updates, this biography will almost certainly become the definitive one. Rachel Sylvester, Daily Telegraph

Following the failure of the 1848 revolution a great many political refugees headed for England - the richly cosmopolitan hub of an Empire, and the commercial-industrial locus of the world. Among the German contingent of exiles were, famously, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. But many less luminous names, no less well-educated in their native Germany, also settled in England and made their way there, whether as teachers or tailors, journalists or musicians, polemicists or political organizers. Few of these exiles knew how long they would have to call England home: some became keen Anglophiles, while others remained resolutely wedded in spirit to the old country.Rosemary Ashtons study, first published in 1986, charts the fortunes of this disparate group and illuminates Victorian England through their eyes, so making a fascinating account of a neglected area of Anglo-German relations.

What were the consequences for Germany, and the world, that William II was Kaiser at the onset of the Great War? In The Kaiser and His Times (first published in 1964), Michael Balfour analyzes the social, constitutional, and economic forces at work in imperial Germany, and sets the complex and disputed character of the Kaiser, who occupied such a central position in the three decades before 1918, in the context of his family background and the history of Germany.[Balfour] has borne in mind the Kaisers own request to the head of his military Secretariat - Not dry reports only, please, but now and then a funny story. The circumstances that allowed to Kaiser to live as if The greater part of his life... was illusion would make comic reading if the results had not been so tragic...Kirkus Review

For almost a century the islands of Orkney and Shetland were under the rule of the Stewart earls, father and son, a rule remarkable for its infamous reputation in island history. Robert Stewart was an illegitimate son of James V, king of Scots, who seized power in Orkney in the 1560s and was created earl of Shetland in 1581. Roberts son was the extraordinary and ill-starred Earl Patrick, Black Patie, whose execution for treason in 1615 brought the era to a close. This book has its foundations in two previous books by Peter Anderson, one on each character.

I agree with Lord David [Cecil] that Melbourne as a friend or relative must have been one of the most delightful, wise and entertaining of men, but in public life I believe him also to have been ambitious, cynical and almost wholly without political principle. He was, in short, much less of a carefree amateur, much more of a politician. Philip Ziegler, from his PrefaceFirst published in 1976, Philip Zieglers Melbourne drew on hitherto unused material and made an unprecedently searching assessment of the eminent Whig statesman of the 1830s/40s. It is extraordinary enough that Queen Victorias first Prime Minister should have been dragged through the courts by an aggrieved husband not once but twice. Yet Melbournes problematic personal life is only one reason why Ziegler, even-handed and scrupulous, was compelled to test the validity of Victorias famous final judgement that Melbourne was not a good or firm minister.

He proclaimed himself a genius and raged against the slightest criticism from fellow scholars; he was a Marxist who despised the Idiot People; he could be generous and affectionate yet hurled insults at his friends; he inveighed against Puritanism but was himself in many ways a Puritan: A. L. Rowse was a man of many contradictions.In this clear-sighted and absorbing biography, Richard Ollard examines the many sides of Rowses Protean personality to reveal a man who, whatever he was responding to - public affairs, the arts, natural beauty or events in his personal life - did so with tremendous energy and passion.An urbane study of the celebrated historian. Antonia Fraser, Daily MailStrikes a perfect balance between the Jekyll Rowse and the Hyde Rowse. Bevis Hillier, SpectatorExcellent. Katherine Duncan-Jones, TLS

Politics in the Age of Peel, first published in 1953, is concerned with the ordinary working world of politicians in England during the stormy period between 1830 and 1850: the age of the railway, the Chartists, the Anti-Corn Law League and the Irish famine. Even in the wake of the Great Reform Act of 1832 many corrupt aspects of the old unreformed system of democratic election survived; and politicians had to meet national problems in the teeth of newly clamorous public opinion, while remaining hostage to the representative structure that defined (and limited) their powers.Norman Gash made his professional reputation with this brilliant work, hailed in an unsigned TLS review - which was known to have been written by Sir Lewis Namier - as worthy of the warmest acclamation.

This richly enjoyable biography of the great Victorian novelist reminds us how truly revolutionary was George Eliot... [Ashton] provides luminously sane readings of the marvellous novels. A.N. Wilson, Evening StandardExcellent... Ashton cites Eliots achievement in a literary landscape which moves from Scott and George Sand to Dickens, Tennyson and Browning... a fluent, vivid book... it makes one thrill again to the breadth of Eliots genius and the passionate, vulnerable nature that accompanied her wide-ranging mind. Jenny Uglow, Independent on SundayAn extremely impressive work... the George Eliot who emerges from Professor Ashtons book is a remarkable woman of exceptional integrity whose life expresses the spirit of the Victorian age, even as it goes against the very grain of it. Susie Boyt, Sunday Express

Sir Richard Grenville (1542-1591), English sea captain and explorer, became a legendary figure in the resistance to the Spanish Armada, dying as a result of wounds sustained at the helm of the galleon Revenge in the Battle of Flores: a fight in which he struggled against overwhelming odds.First published in 1937, Sir Richard Grenville of the Revenge was A.L. Rowses first full-length historical monograph. There is no doubt that Mr Rowses book will establish itself as the standard biography of Grenville, and he deserves our unstinting thanks for the patient research that he has put into it. J.E. Neale, Sunday TimesMagnificent... I was delighted, too, by the masterful descriptions of the Elizabethan era and the brilliant figures of that age. Lloyd George, in a letter to A.L. Rowse

[Edward] FitzGerald (1809-1883) won a small piece of immortality with his translation-adaptation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam... but in every other way he seems to have successfully avoided fulfilment. A godless Epicurean, he lived in permanent virginity, never pressing his homosexual desires beyond a number of sentimental crushes... The son of a fabulously rich heiress, he rarely travelled... Though he had many friends he also had a perverse penchant for alienating them... [Robert Bernard] Martin argues that FitzGeralds greatest achievement, outside the Rubaiyat, is his letters, which certainly have grace and a wistful charm.Kirkus ReviewThere is [] something sad about the life of this loving and never quite satisfied man... Mr. Martins biography is splendid reading, and it is a real credit to it that he makes us feel the sadness.New York Times

Henry Woodd Nevinson (1856-1941) was a scholar and socialist who found his métier on the cusp of the twentieth century, as a war correspondent who would go on to chronicle the major wars and civil conflicts of his time, from South Africa and Russia to India and the Balkans. Reporting from the Western Front in 1918 he was wounded at the Dardanelles. Nevinsons work was marked by a strong sense of conscience and underscored by activism: directing relief work in Macedonia and Albania, campaigning against the dreadful mistreatment of bonded labourers in Portuguese Angola, and supporting female suffrage in Britain. (He would marry the suffragette Evelyn Sharp.) Nevinson wrote three volumes of autobiography: Changes and Chances (1923), More Changes, More Chances (1925), and Last Changes, Last Chances (1928). Fire of Life, first published in 1935, is an expert abridgement of this trilogy.

The great Russian explorer Nikolay Przhevalsky (1839-1888) made an indelible contribution to the worlds atlases, and its store of zoological and botanical knowledge, as a consequence of his four arduous and dangerous expeditions through the Central Asia of Western Mongolia, Eastern Turkestan and Northern Tibet. Donald Rayfields biography of Przhevalsky - first published in 1976 and drawing on the exporers diaries, letters, and published works - tells the thrilling story of the explorers groundbreaking journeys, undertaken in an age of extreme political sensitivity between Russia, China and Britain. A rich portrait emerges of an extraordinary Byronic character who was ill-suited to civilisation but much at home with the loneliness and hardship of the nomadic life. A rigorous army officer and a phenomenal shot, gifted also with a photographic memory, Przhevalsky became one of the most widely-admired men in Russia, and Rayfield adroitly explores the grounds of his reputation.

It is a melancholy thought that as soon as reforms are put into practice, disillusionment enters the political scene...Norman Gashs Ford Lectures, originally delivered at Oxford in 1964, address an era of reform that followed the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828, Catholic Emancipation in 1829, and the Reform Act of 1832. The history of this period has often focused on the conflicts that proved necessary before the Acts came to pass. But it was only after 1832 that the real crisis of reform emerged: the clash between what had actually been done, and what men thought should be the consequences of what had been done. As Gash notes of the arguments over the Reform Bill of 1831, "substantially the foundations for the Victorian two-party system were laid by the divisions of politicians into Reformers and Conservatives."

Between the disintegration of the Liberal Party in 1915 and the election of Harold Wilsons Labour in 1964, Britain weathered a turbulent half-century including two world wars and many profound socio-political changes. What did not survive this tumult was Britains sea-based Empire, as the great land-based USA and USSR now assumed dominance. With customary wit, scholarship and wisdom Robert Blake guides the reader through Britains slow decline from the worlds premier power to a nation with no military commitments East of Suez: still important, wishing to see itself as a cut above the rest, but now effectively no better than third-ranking.[T]he most successful sections [are] the four brilliant chapters on the Second World War... But it is not only for these that The Decline of Power should be read. It is a fair-minded book... fluently, even racily written... Peter Pulzer, London Review of Books

The best one-volume study of Churchill yet available. David Cannadine, ObserverMagisterial. Vernon Bogdanor, New StatesmanA tour de force... A masterly chronicle of Churchill as a domestic figure rather than as the bulldog wartime leader, and one of the most subtle portraits of him as a politician. Addison revises the view of Churchill as uninterested and out of his depth in domestic affairs, painting instead a nuanced picture of a canny parliamentarian. Churchill changed parties twice but managed to accomplish the change, writes Addison, with exceptional dexterity, making it appear as if he were maintaining his principles while the parties changed theirs... Addisons most interesting assertion is that the rise of Hitler saved Churchill from drifting into right-wing irrelevance. Most impressively, Addison doesnt settle for easy classifications, admitting that Churchill... is a man of whom almost everything that can be said is true in part.Kirkus Review

Jan Marshs book is the best researched and fullest biography of Rossetti we have yet had. Fiona MacCarthy, New York Review of BooksAlthough never formally part of the Pre-Raphaelite poetic school, which included her brother Gabriel, William Morris, and Algernon Swinburne, Christina Rossetti has always been linked to it. [Jan Marsh] gives full attention to both the individual and her unique variety of fantastic and devotional poetry... Marsh delineates an appealing person while examining her adolescent nervous breakdown, abortive engagement to a lapsed Catholic painter, frustrated love for an absentminded scholar, and relationships with her devout but hearty sister, Maria, and with her brothers... The authors steady, sympathetic course through Rossettis divided life enables readers to delve into the intense and original self most fully expressed in her poetry.Kirkus Review