Ebooks de historia, página 98 de 2229

Dont leave yet. Let there be one more piece of magic to remember the place by.Is there something especially Irish about Irish gardens? The climate, soils, availability of plants and skills of green-fingered people generate an unusually benign environment, its true, but not one that is unique to Ireland. Irish gardens tend to avoid magnificence in favour of a quiet and domesticated beauty, but that is not peculiar to Ireland either.Strains of Irishness run through these gardens like seams of ore. Seen not just as zones of horticultural bravura, but also as reflections of historical, cultural, political and religious events and values, the gardens accrue an unusual richness of surface and depth of meaning.Atmospherically illustrated by Brian Lalor, The Irish Garden wanders into individual gardens, rather than presenting a sweeping chronology. This book is a rhapsody on themes of Irishness, as if the spirit and soul of Ireland itself were sometimes more visible in these places than in the more conventionally visited locations of battlefields, breweries and bars.

The French strategy of seeking to establish a fortified base across the Viet Minhs route to and from Laos provoked an awesome struggle that lasted from November 1953 to May 1954. During this time Dien Bien Phu, surrounded by 2000 ft hills and thus difficult to re-supply by air as the French had intended, became the scene of fearful contests between the locally savvy men of General Giap and the hapless French forces who, losing one strongpoint after another, were finally trapped in Dien Bien Phu garrison. The French lost the cream of their strategic reserve in the region and, within months, were agreeing to the independence of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. David Stone, a British Army officer of the post World War II era, leads the reader through the complex nature of this significant action.

It was the most providential escape yet. It will probably have the effect of making them think that I am even more mysterious than they believe me to be, and that is saying a good deal. Michael Collins knew the power of his persona, and capitalised on what people wanted to believe. The image we have of him comes filtered through a sensational lens, exaggerated out of all proportion. We see what we have come to expect: the man who won the war, the centre of a web of intelligence that brought the British Empire to its knees. He comes to us as a mixture of truth and lies, propaganda and misunderstanding. The willingness to see him as the sum of the Irish revolution, and in turn reduce him to a caricature of his many parts, clouds our view of both the man and the revolution.Drawing on archives in Ireland, Britain and the United States, the authors question our traditional assumptions about Collins. Was he the man of his age, or was he just luckier, more brazen, more written about and more photographed than the rest? Despite the pictures of him in uniform during the last weeks of his life, Collins saw very little of the actual fight. He was chiefly an organiser and a strategist. Should we remember him as a master of the mundane rather than the romantic figure of the blockbuster film? The eight thematic, highly illustrated chapters scrutinise different aspects of Collins life: origins, work, war, politics, celebrity, beliefs, death and afterlives. Approaching him through the eyes of contemporaries and historians, friends and enemies, this provocative book reveals new insights, challenging what we think we know about him and, in turn, what we think we know about the Irish revolution.

In the past, Luton was a market town and, for many years, was also a centre for the brewing industry. In the 19th century it became famous for hat making, and more recently it has grown into a thriving industrial centre. During the Second World War it played an important part in the manufacture of army vehicles, and children bound for school had to dodge the Churchill tanks on their way to various theatres of conflict. Nowadays, Luton Airport is the gateway for all types of traveller and the town is well known for its famous football team. Luton has always provided visitors with a warm welcome and many have stayed and made the town their home. Local industry offered employment opportunities in the early 20th century and many had cause to be grateful for its relative prosperity during the Great Depression. Following the Second World War, immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and from the West Indies brought with them colourful new cultures that are celebrated in the annual Carnival. This fascinating and illustrated account of Lutons past will inform and delight anyone who lives in the town and inspire those who grew up here.

Major Richard Llewellyn, who fought at Quatre Bras, wrote in 1837 that, Had it not been so closely followed by the... victory of Waterloo, perhaps the gallant exploits and unexampled bravery that marked that day would... have excited even more admiration than was actually associated with it.This book stands out from the wealth of Napoleonic literature in that it is the first English-language account to focus solely on the battle of Quatre Bras. It is based upon extensive research and in many cases unpublished personal accounts from all participating countries, as well as a detailed topographic, aerial survey of the battlefield. These combine to provide a highly personal, balanced and authoritative work. The author unravels the controversies of a battle where commanders made errors of omission and commission and where cowardice rubbed shoulders with heroism. This is the story of a battle that turned a campaign; of triumph and disaster. It is a story of two great generals, but more importantly, of the intense human experience of those that they led. It is a book that will appeal to both the scholar and the generalist.

In the Royal Navy vernacular, the term greenie describes the officers and ratings responsible for the electrical engineering functions of the fleet. Electrical engineering has driven the Royal Navy for far longer than one might imagine, from solving the problem of magnetic interference with the compass by the ironclad early in the 20th century onward. Author Commander Moore traces the development of technology from 1850 to todays integrated micro computers that control almost every aspect of navigation, intel, and strike capacity. At the same time, he describes how the Navys structure and manpower changed to accommodate the new technologies, changes often accelerated in wartime, particularly in World War II. Without the full cooperation of naval establishments and organisations and various public and private museums and manufacturers, this work would have been impossible to produce. Written in an anecdotal, narrative style but with a complete mastery of the science itself, it will appeal not only to those interested in the history of the Royal Navy but also those many thousands, past and present, who can claim the honour of calling themselves one of the Greenies.

Launched as the pride of British shipbuilding and the largest vessel in the world, Olympic was more than 40 per cent larger than her nearest rivals: almost 900ft long and the first ship to exceed 40,000 tons. She was built for comfort rather than speed and equipped with an array of facilities, including Turkish and electric baths (one of the first ships to have them), a swimming pool, gymnasium, squash court, a la carte restaurant, large first-class staterooms and plush public rooms. Surviving from 1911 until 1935, she was a firm favourite with the travelling public carrying hundreds of thousands of fare-paying passengers and retained a style and opulence even into her twilight years. During the First World War, she carried more troops than any other comparable steamship and was the only passenger liner ever to sink an enemy submarine by ramming it. Overshadowed frequently by her sister ships Titanic and Britannic, Olympics history deserves more attention than it has received. She was evolutionary in design rather than revolutionary, but marked an ambition for the White Star Line to dominate the North Atlantic express route. Rivals immediately began trying to match her in size and luxury. The optimism that led to her conception was rewarded, whereas her doomed sisters never fulfilled their creators dreams. This revised and expanded edition of the critically acclaimed RMS Olympic: Titanics Sister uses new images and further original research to tell the story of this remarkable ship 80 years after her career ended.

Churchills 21st birthday and baptism of fire both took place in Cuba in 1895. This was the year he went on his first international adventure, wrote his first military and political analyses and engaged in his first dicey diplomatic mission. Finding his footing as a journalist - and indeed a war correspondent - he also became the centre of controversy in the American and British press and, while shamelessly exploiting his connections and developing the famous Churchill style became known as a public figure in his own right. Attention has previously focused on Churchills Indian frontier and Boer War experience as the most formative moments in his youth. But now, with original research through untapped access to Spanish and Cuban archives and interviews, this book shows that his much earlier Cuban trip was really the moment when he came of age and started down the path to become a man to be remembered throughout history.

Aristocrats and itinerants, unionists and nationalists, Catholics and Protestants the Great War united thousands of Clare men and women to a cause for which many of them would go out to fight and die. Their motives varied from a sense of duty to king and country to concern about the fate of poor Catholic Belgium; from mercenary motives, fuelled by poverty, to the moral duty to fight for civilization against the savage Huns. Some followed Redmonds call to secure Home Rule, while others enlisted for sheer adventure. The work attempts, for the first time, to understand what really happened in County Clare during the Great War, how its economic and political life was radically transformed during this terrible conflict, and how the contribution of those who gave their lives was largely written out of history.

Offering a unique insight into the habitual inebriate offender class in Ireland, this book examines the inebriate reformatory system in Ireland from its foundation in 1900 until its closure in 1920 and the three institutions charged with punishing or rehabilitating habitual drunkards: The State Inebriate Reformatory, The Certified Inebriate Reformatory and The Voluntary Inebriate Retreat. Using registers of inmates, annual reports, court cases and institutional records, Conor Reidy presents a stark account of the ways in which alcohol addiction and lack of opportunity condemned countless Irish victims to lives of poverty, misery and crime in the early twentieth century. The author also looks at the ways in which institutional staff sought to exact reform over the inmates through education, training, religion and discipline. This book profiles a hitherto littleknown system, giving it a place within the historiography of Irelands complex web of so-called reformative institutions.

Along the coast of Fife, in villages like Culross and Pittenweem, history records that some women were executed as witches. Nevertheless, the reality of what happened the night that Janet Cornfoot was lynched at Pittenweem is hard to grasp as one sits by the harbour watching the fishing boats unload their catch and the pleasure boats rising with the tide. How could people do this to an old woman? Why was no-one ever brought to justice? And why would anyone defend such a lynching? The task of the historian is to try to make events in the past come alive and seem less strange. The details of the witch-hunt are fascinating. Some of the anecdotes are strange. The modern reader finds it hard to imagine illness being blamed on the malevolence of a beggar woman denied charity, or the economic failure of a sea voyage being attributed to the village hag, not bad weather. Witch-hunting was related to ideas, values, attitudes and political events. It was a complicated process, involving religious and civil authorities, village tensions and the fears of the elite. The witch-hunt in Scotland also took place at a time when one of the main agendas was the creation of a righteous or godly society. As a result, religious authorities had control over aspects of peoples lives which seem as strange to us today as beliefs about magic or witchcraft. It was not accidental that the witch-hunt in Scotland, and specifically in Fife, should have happened at this time. This book tells the story of what occurred over a period of a century and a half, and offers some explanation as to why it occurred.

How has Saudi Arabia managed to maintain its Arab and Islamic values while at the same time adopting Western technology and a market economy? How have its hereditary leaders, who govern with a mixture of political pragmatism and religious zeal, managed to maintain their power?This comprehensive history of Saudi Arabia from 1745 to the present provides insight into its culture and politics, its powerful oil industry, its relations with its neighbours, and the ongoing influence of the Wahhabi movement. Based on a wealth of Arab, American, British, Western and Eastern European sources, this book will stand as the definitive account of the largest state on the Arabian peninsula.

The story of the man who became a music legend. Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington was arguably the greatest jazz composer of the twentieth centuryand an impenetrably enigmatic personality whom no one, not even his closest friends, claimed to understand. His music, too, was powerful and entirely original. Andre Previn compared him to Stravinsky and Prokofiev, Percy Grainger to Bach and Delius. But in fact he was very much his own man. The grandson of a slave, Ellington dropped out of high school to become a musical showman of incomparable suavity, as comfortable in Carnegie Hall as in the nightclubs where he honed his famous style. When he raised his fingers, the music that blazed out had its own unique richness and range. He wrote hundreds of compositions, many of which remain beloved standards, and sought inspiration in an endless string of transient lovers, concealing himself behind a smiling mask of flowery language and ironic charm. In this revealing biography, Terry Teachout skillfully peels away the countless layers of Ellingtons evasion to tell the unvarnished truth about a creative genius and musical pioneer.

Old East Enders tells East Londons story from Roman Shadwell to the present day, focusing on the little-told story of the medieval and early modern Tower Hamlets. Jane Cox, the former Principal Assistant Keeper of Public Records, is an experienced author and lecturer, and her immensely readable and entertaining new book takes in recent archaeological research and a whole range of new record research. A wide range of fascinating and in some cases previously unpublished illustrations further enliven the text, which illuminates the history of this part of London as never before.

The Story of Leicester traces the evolution of this remarkable city. When the Romans arrived they developed an existing settlement into Ratae, an administrative capital. During the Tudor, Stuart and Georgian periods the town lost status, but remained an important market town. Industrialisation and population growth radically changed Leicester during Victorian times and it became prosperous, its economy underpinned by the hosiery, boot and shoe and engineering industries the basis of modern Leicester. This popular history brings the story of the city up to date and provides new insights that will delight both residents and visitors.

Following his two classics, Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay and The Horse in the Furrow, renowned oral historian George Ewart Evans continues his study of the vanishing customs, working habits and rich language of the farming communities of East Anglia with The Pattern Under the Plough (Faber, 1966). Although based on East Anglia, this book was and remains of wider interest, for - as the author pointed out at the time - similar changes were occurring in North America, and also happening with remarkable speed in Africa. In chronicling the old culture George Ewart Evans has taken its two chief aspects, the home and the farm. He describes the house with its fascinating constructional details, the magic invoked for its protection, the mystique of the hearth, the link of the bees with the people of the house, and some of their fears and pre-occupations. Among the chapters on the farm is one of Evanss most original pieces of research: the description of the secret horse societies. Beautifully illustrated by David Gentleman, this book is important not only for the material it reveals about the past but for the implications for present-day society.As real (and as valuable) as the evidence unearthed by the spadework of archaeology.Observer

The great violinist Viktoria Mullovas story is one of striking contrasts and huge challenges. As a young musician she was a bright star in the Soviet musical firmament, but she stunned the world when she escaped the KGB and fled to the West, leaving behind her family, friends and all she knew. And in her flight from Finland, Viktoria also abandoned on her hotel bed the priceless Stradivarius shed played during her triumph at the International Tchaikovsky Competition. From Russia to Love recounts the journey of a remarkable woman. Armed only with her violin bow and her exceptional talent, Viktoria went on to conquer the West. As her new life unfolded, first in America and then in Europe, Viktoria met fellow exiles Nureyev and Rostropovich, fell in love with conductor Claudio Abbado and learned to throw off the shackles of her Russian training. Granted unparalleled access to her subject, Eva Maria Chapman paints an intimate, truthful and sensitive portrait of a unique artist.

It has been said of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) that no one from his day to ours has ever rivalled him in his achievements in such a wide range of fields. He was a far-sighted scientific genius, fertile in theory and invention, and one of the foremost physicians of his time. His gift for friendship enabled him to recruit the members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham which is often seen as the main intellectual powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution in England. He was especially close to Franklin, Wedgwood, Boulton and Watt. Towards the end of his life he gained recognition as the leading English poet in the country, and he deeply influenced Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley. The most striking of Darwins many talents was his extraordinary scientific insight in physics, chemistry, geology, meteorology and all aspects of biology -- his deepest insight being his evolutionary theory of life. Two of his books, the Zoonomia, which made him famous as the leading medical mind of the 1790s, and The Temple of Nature, a long poem, show that he believed life developed from microscopic specks in primeval seas through fishes and amphibians to humankind. But he failed to convince the world about biological evolution: that was left to his grandson Charles. Erasmus was the first person to give a full description of how clouds form and of photosynthesis in plants. He was also an obsessive inventor of mechanical devices, among them a speaking machine, a copying machine and the steering technique used in modern cars. Substantial donations of Darwin family papers recently to the Cambridge University Library, including over 170 letters written by Erasmus Darwin himself, have made it possible for the author to tell much of the enthralling story of his life in Erasmus own words. Desmond King-Hele, who is the leading authority on Erasmus Darwin having studied his life and work for three decades, is a mathematician and physicist who is an expert on space research by satellite, in particular on the Earths gravity field and the upper atmosphere. W.F. Bynum in Nature: To most people who have heard of him, Erasmus Darwin was a successful doctor, bad poet and, most significantly, the grandfather of Charles Darwin. In this astonishing book, Desmond King-Hele seeks to reverse the judgement and argue that Charles should rather be remembered as Erasmuss grandson...[that] Erasmus was much the brighter spark, a genius of rare qualities...Few scientific lives have ever been so carefully and thoughtfully examined. There are no final words in history, but this is a biography for which the word definitive can be aptly applied. Patricia Fara in Times Higher Educational Supplement: Instead of being dismissed as the whimsical creator of a bizarre tale of gaudily dressed characters engrossed in various forms of polygamy, [he] is now recognized as an influential author and an important man of science who made vital contributions to the early stages of English industrialization...A moving and amply researched narrative of a man who for [the author] has acquired a heroic stature... Choice: ...King-Heles splendid biography of Charles Darwins grandfather...

Why do women go for bastards? Not all women certainly, but an identifiable number of them - including almost all heiresses - find themselves drawn to, even marrying, a thoroughgoing wrongun who steals their money, cheats on them and sometimes beats them up. Why, to these educated, rational, rich and otherwise balanced young women, is Mr Wrong irresistible? What is it about him, what is it in them? In short, what is the nexus between wealth, celebrity, sex and self-destruction? The Irresistible Mr Wrong is the serial biography of five women who were all serially married to the same man: Porfirio Rubirosa. From the Jazz Age to the mid-sixties, through Cafe Society, Hitlers Berlin, occupied Paris and the post-war fleshpots of the Jet Set, Jeremy Scott charts the glamour and tragedy of the wives and mistresses of the ultimate playboy.

Attempts to understand how Roman Britain ends and Anglo-Saxon England begins have been undermined by the division of studies into pre-Roman, Roman and early medieval periods. This groundbreaking new study traces the history of British tribes and British tribal rivalries from the pre-Roman period, through the Roman period and into the post-Roman period. It shows how tribal conflict was central to the arrival of Roman power in Britain and how tribal identities persisted through the Roman period and were a factor in three great convulsions that struck Britain during the Roman centuries. It explores how tribal conflicts may have played a major role in the end of Roman Britain, creating a failed state scenario akin in some ways to those seen recently in Bosnia and Iraq, and brought about the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. Finally, it considers how British tribal territories and British tribal conflicts can be understood as the direct predecessors of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and Anglo-Saxon conflicts that form the basis of early English History.