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Books > History > World history > 1750 to 1900

Neighbours of Passage - A Microhistory of Migrants in a Paris Tenement, 1882-1932 (Hardcover): Fabrice Langrognet Neighbours of Passage - A Microhistory of Migrants in a Paris Tenement, 1882-1932 (Hardcover)
Fabrice Langrognet
R4,142 Discovery Miles 41 420 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The book is a sociocultural microhistory of migrants. From the 1880s to the 1930s, it traces the lives of the occupants of a housing complex located just north of the French capital, in the heart of the Plaine-Saint-Denis. Starting in the 1870s, that industrial suburb became a magnet for working-class migrants of diverse origins, from within France and abroad. The author examines how the inhabitants of that particular place identified themselves and others. The study looks at the role played, in the construction of social difference, by interpersonal contacts, institutional interactions and migration. The objective of the book is to carry out an original experiment: applying microhistorical methods to the history of modern migrations. Beyond its own material history, the tenement is an observation point: it was deliberately selected for its high degree of demographic diversity, which contrasts with the typical objects of the traditional, ethnicity-based scholarship on migration. The micro lens allows for the reconstruction of the itineraries, interactions, and representations of the tenement's occupants, in both their singularity and their structural context. Through its many individual stories, the book restores a degree of complexity that is often overlooked by historical accounts at broader levels.

The Poor in Western Europe in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Paperback): Stuart Woolf The Poor in Western Europe in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Paperback)
Stuart Woolf
R1,274 Discovery Miles 12 740 Ships in 9 - 15 working days

First published in 1986, this book examines poverty and changing attitudes towards the poor and charity across England, France and Italy. It discusses the causes of poverty and the distinctions between the poor and the class-conscious proletariat. Taking early nineteenth-century Italy as a special study, it uses the exceptionally rich documentary sources from this time to examine such issues as charity, repression, the reasons why families suffered poverty and what strategies they adopted for survival. In this study, Stuart Woolf takes full account of recent work in historical demography and in sociological studies of poverty and the welfare state to produce this original and thoughtful work. This book will be of interest to those studying the history of poverty, class and the welfare state.

The Routledge Global History of Feminism (Hardcover): Bonnie G Smith, Nova Robinson The Routledge Global History of Feminism (Hardcover)
Bonnie G Smith, Nova Robinson
R6,593 Discovery Miles 65 930 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Based on the scholarship of a global team of diverse authors, this wide-ranging handbook surveys the history and current status of pro-women thought and activism over millennia. The book traces the complex history of feminism across the globe, presenting its many identities, its heated debates, its racism, discussion of religious belief and values, commitment to social change, and the struggles of women around the world for gender justice. Authors approach past understandings and today's evolving sense of what feminism or womanism or gender justice are from multiple viewpoints. These perspectives are geographical to highlight commonalities and differences from region to region or nation to nation; they are also chronological suggesting change or continuity from the ancient world to our digital age. Across five parts, authors delve into topics such as colonialism, empire, the arts, labor activism, family, and displacement as the means to take the pulse of feminism from specific vantage points highlighting that there is no single feminist story but rather multiple portraits of a broad cast of activists and thinkers. Comprehensive and properly global, this is the ideal volume for students and scholars of women's and gender history, women's studies, social history, political movements and feminism.

Transnational France - The Modern History of a Universal Nation (Paperback, 2nd edition): Tyler Stovall Transnational France - The Modern History of a Universal Nation (Paperback, 2nd edition)
Tyler Stovall
R1,545 Discovery Miles 15 450 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Taking a transnational approach to French history and coming right up to the present day, Stovall opens a lens onto both French identity and the history of the world more broadly which allows students to engage with French history in a much wider context. National histories (such as of France) are increasing being taught with a global view. This book draws the reader into a key aspect of France's political culture - universalism - making it the perfect textbook for these French history courses. The first edition was early in the field with this world-viewpoint, and now the second edition brings it up to date meaning it engages with things readers are particularly interested in at the moment from a historical perspective

Transnational France - The Modern History of a Universal Nation (Hardcover, 2nd edition): Tyler Stovall Transnational France - The Modern History of a Universal Nation (Hardcover, 2nd edition)
Tyler Stovall
R4,156 Discovery Miles 41 560 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Taking a transnational approach to French history and coming right up to the present day, Stovall opens a lens onto both French identity and the history of the world more broadly which allows students to engage with French history in a much wider context. National histories (such as of France) are increasing being taught with a global view. This book draws the reader into a key aspect of France's political culture - universalism - making it the perfect textbook for these French history courses. The first edition was early in the field with this world-viewpoint, and now the second edition brings it up to date meaning it engages with things readers are particularly interested in at the moment from a historical perspective

Double Lives - A History of Working Motherhood (Paperback): Helen McCarthy Double Lives - A History of Working Motherhood (Paperback)
Helen McCarthy
R414 R340 Discovery Miles 3 400 Save R74 (18%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2021 Shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2021 Longlisted for the HWA Non-Fiction Crown 2021 'Fabulous' - The Times 'A milestone in women's history' - Observer 'Groundbreaking ... a fascinating read' - Herald In Britain today, three-quarters of mothers are in employment and paid work is an unremarkable feature of women's lives after childbirth. Yet a century ago, working mothers were in the minority, excluded altogether from many occupations, whilst their wage-earning was widely perceived as a social ill. In Double Lives, Helen McCarthy accounts for this remarkable transformation and the momentous consequences it has had for Britain. Recovering the everyday worlds of working mothers, this groundbreaking history forces us not only to re-evaluate the past, but to ask anew how current attitudes towards mothers in the workplace have developed and how far we have to go. 'Impressive and nuanced' - Guardian 'Brilliant' - Literary Review

Harcourt And Son... - A Political Biography of Sir William Harcourt, 1827-1904 (Hardcover): Patrick Jackson Harcourt And Son... - A Political Biography of Sir William Harcourt, 1827-1904 (Hardcover)
Patrick Jackson
R3,499 Discovery Miles 34 990 Ships in 15 - 20 working days

Sir William Harcourt was a major figure in the Liberal politics of late Victorian Britain. Supported, as private secretary and inseparable companion, by his son Lewis, Harcourt served in all four of Gladstone's governments. He was home secretary from 1880-1885, and chancellor of the Exchequer in 1886, and again from 1892-1895. When Gladstone retired in 1894 Harcourt, who had served as deputy leader in the House of Commons, expected to succeed him as prime minister, but the queen preferred the much younger Lord Rosebery and most of Harcourt's colleagues, alienated by an overbearing manner, were unwilling to press his claims. Harcourt continued to serve as chancellor of the Exchequer under Rosebery, and his 1894 budget contained a comprehensive new systems of graduated death duties whereby for the first time land was taxed on the same basis on personal property. Illustrated. Retired from British government service, Jackson's biographies specialize in Victorian parliamentary politics.

The State of Freedom - A Social History of the British State since 1800 (Hardcover, New): Patrick Joyce The State of Freedom - A Social History of the British State since 1800 (Hardcover, New)
Patrick Joyce
R3,123 Discovery Miles 31 230 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

What is the state? The State of Freedom offers an important new take on this classic question by exploring what exactly the state did and how it worked. Patrick Joyce asks us to re-examine the ordinary things of the British state from dusty government files and post offices to well-thumbed primers in ancient Greek and Latin and the classrooms and dormitories of public schools and Oxbridge colleges. This is also a history of the 'who' and the 'where' of the state, of the people who ran the state, the government offices they sat in and the college halls they dined in. Patrick Joyce argues that only by considering these things, people and places can we really understand the nature of the modern state. This is both a pioneering new approach to political history in which social and material factors are centre stage, and a highly original history of modern Britain.

Negotiating Empire in the Middle East - Ottomans and Arab Nomads in the Modern Era, 1840-1914 (Paperback): M. Talha Cicek Negotiating Empire in the Middle East - Ottomans and Arab Nomads in the Modern Era, 1840-1914 (Paperback)
M. Talha Cicek
R754 Discovery Miles 7 540 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

In the early 1840s, Ottoman rulers launched a new imperial project, partly in order to reassert their authority over their lands and subjects, crucially including the Arab nomads. By examining the evolution of this relationship between the Ottoman Empire and Arab nomads in the modern era, M. Talha Cicek puts forward a new framework to demonstrate how negotiations between the Ottomans and the Arab nomads played a part in making the modern Middle East. Reflecting on multiple aspects of Ottoman authority and governance across Syria, Iraq, Arabia, Transjordan and along their frontiers, Cicek reveals how the relationship between the imperial centre and the nomads was not merely a brutal imposition of a strict order, but instead one of constant, complicated, and fluid negotiation. In so doing, he highlights how the responses of the nomads made a considerable impact on the ultimate outcome, transforming the imperial policies accordingly.

Science and Reading in the Eighteenth Century - The Hardwicke Circle and the Royal Society, 1740-1766 (Paperback): Markman Ellis Science and Reading in the Eighteenth Century - The Hardwicke Circle and the Royal Society, 1740-1766 (Paperback)
Markman Ellis
R586 Discovery Miles 5 860 Ships in 12 - 17 working days
Let Justice Be Done - Writings from American Abolitionists, 1688-1865 (Paperback): Kerry Walters Let Justice Be Done - Writings from American Abolitionists, 1688-1865 (Paperback)
Kerry Walters
R567 R464 Discovery Miles 4 640 Save R103 (18%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days
The New Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations (Hardcover, New): William Earl Weeks The New Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations (Hardcover, New)
William Earl Weeks
R1,252 Discovery Miles 12 520 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Since their first publication, the four volumes of the Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations have served as the definitive source for the topic, from the colonial period to the Cold War. This entirely new first volume narrates the British North American colonists' pre-existing desire for expansion, security and prosperity and argues that these desires are both the essence of American foreign relations and the root cause for the creation of the United States. They required the colonists to unite politically, as individual colonies could not dominate North America by themselves. Although ingrained localist sentiments persisted, a strong, durable Union was required for mutual success, thus American nationalism was founded on the idea of allegiance to the Union. Continued tension between the desire for expansion and the fragility of the Union eventually resulted in the Union's collapse and the Civil War.

Until Justice Be Done - America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction (Hardcover): Kate... Until Justice Be Done - America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction (Hardcover)
Kate Masur
R932 R763 Discovery Miles 7 630 Save R169 (18%) Ships in 15 - 20 working days

The half-century before the Civil War was beset with conflict over equality as well as freedom. Beginning in 1803, many free states enacted laws that discouraged free African Americans from settling within their boundaries and restricted their rights to testify in court, move freely from place to place, work, vote, and attend public school. But over time, African American activists and their white allies, often facing mob violence, courageously built a movement to fight these racist laws. They countered the states' insistences that states were merely trying to maintain the domestic peace with the equal-rights promises they found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They were pastors, editors, lawyers, politicians, ship captains, and countless ordinary men and women, and they fought in the press, the courts, the state legislatures, and Congress, through petitioning, lobbying, party politics, and elections. Long stymied by hostile white majorities and unfavorable court decisions, the movement's ideals became increasingly mainstream in the 1850s, particularly among supporters of the new Republican party. When Congress began rebuilding the nation after the Civil War, Republicans installed this vision of racial equality in the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment. These were the landmark achievements of the first civil rights movement. Kate Masur's magisterial history delivers this pathbreaking movement in vivid detail. Activists such as John Jones, a free Black tailor from North Carolina whose opposition to the Illinois "black laws" helped make the case for racial equality, demonstrate the indispensable role of African Americans in shaping the American ideal of equality before the law. Without enforcement, promises of legal equality were not enough. But the antebellum movement laid the foundation for a racial justice tradition that remains vital to this day.

The Burden of German History 1919-45 - Essays for the Goethe Institute (Paperback): Michael Laffan The Burden of German History 1919-45 - Essays for the Goethe Institute (Paperback)
Michael Laffan
R991 Discovery Miles 9 910 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Originally published in 1988, The Burden of German History 1919-45 examines the vast literature surrounding Weimar years and the National Socialist tragedy, daunting even for the specialist historian or political scientist. The essays included in this volume provide an invaluable guide to research of the time and provides a stimulating review of a wide range of topics in modern German cultural, political, economic and military history. The essays are based on a series of lectures given by German and Irish scholars to a conference on the theme 'Weimar Germany and National Socialism', which was held in March 1986 in University College, Dublin, under the auspices of the Goethe Institute, Dublin. This book offers a significant commentary on a period of German history which included the exciting and ambivalent freedom of the Weimar society and the repressive, murderous uniformity of National Socialism.

Empire and Popular Culture - Volume II (Hardcover): John Griffiths Empire and Popular Culture - Volume II (Hardcover)
John Griffiths
R3,877 Discovery Miles 38 770 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

From 1830, if not before, the Empire began to permeate the domestic culture of Empire nations in many ways. From consumables, to the excitement of colonial wars, celebrations relating to events in the history of Empire, and the construction of Empire Day in the early Edwardian period, most citizens were encouraged to think of themselves not only as citizens of a nation but of an Empire. Much of the popular culture of the period presented Empire as a force for 'civilisation' but it was often far from the truth and rather, Empire was a repressive mechanism designed ultimately to benefit white settlers and the metropolitan economy. This four volume collection on Empire and Popular Culture contains a wide array of primary sources, complimented by editorial narratives which help the reader to understand the significance of the documents contained therein. It is informed by the recent advocacy of a 'four-nation' approach to Empire containing documents which view Empire from the perspective of England, Scotland Ireland and Wales and will also contain material produced for Empire audiences, as well as indigenous perspectives. The sources reveal both the celebratory and the notorious sides of Empire. This volume considers the ways in which 'Empire' permeated the British public sphere, exploring exhibitions, spectacle and entertainment.

The U.S. and the War in the Pacific, 1941-45 (Hardcover): Sandra Wilson, Michael Sturma, Arjun Subrahmanyan, Dean Aszkielowicz,... The U.S. and the War in the Pacific, 1941-45 (Hardcover)
Sandra Wilson, Michael Sturma, Arjun Subrahmanyan, Dean Aszkielowicz, J.Charles Schencking
R3,837 Discovery Miles 38 370 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

* Concise but comprehensive overview of the history * Includes approximately 20 primary source documents * Perfect for assigning this work for wide range of undergraduate courses in the U.S., ranging from introductory lecture courses to research seminars * Written by scholars who are experts in Japanese, East and South-East Asian history

The Making of Modern Physics in Colonial India (Paperback): Somaditya Banerjee The Making of Modern Physics in Colonial India (Paperback)
Somaditya Banerjee
R1,289 Discovery Miles 12 890 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This monograph offers a cultural history of the development of physics in India during the first half of the twentieth century, focusing on Indian physicists Satyendranath Bose (1894-1974), Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888-1970) and Meghnad Saha (1893-1956). The analytical category "bhadralok physics" is introduced to explore how it became possible for a highly successful brand of modern science to develop in a country that was still under colonial domination. The term Bhadralok refers to the then emerging group of native intelligentsia, who were identified by academic pursuits and manners. Exploring the forms of life of this social group allows a better understanding of the specific character of Indian modernity that, as exemplified by the work of bhadralok physicists, combined modern science with indigenous knowledge in an original program of scientific research. The three scientists achieved the most significant scientific successes in the new revolutionary field of quantum physics, with such internationally recognized accomplishments as the Saha ionization equation (1921), the famous Bose-Einstein statistics (1924), and the Raman Effect (1928), the latter discovery having led to the first ever Nobel Prize awarded to a scientist from Asia. This book analyzes the responses by Indian scientists to the radical concept of the light quantum, and their further development of this approach outside the purview of European authorities. The outlook of bhadralok physicists is characterized here as "cosmopolitan nationalism," which allows us to analyze how the group pursued modern science in conjunction with, and as an instrument of Indian national liberation.

City of the Century - The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America (Paperback, 1st Touchstone ed): Donald L. Miller City of the Century - The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America (Paperback, 1st Touchstone ed)
Donald L. Miller
R687 R555 Discovery Miles 5 550 Save R132 (19%) Ships in 15 - 20 working days

The epic of Chicago is the story of the emergence of modern America. Here, witness Chicago's growth from a desolate fur-trading post in the 1830s to one of the world's most explosively alive cities by 1900.

Donald Miller's powerful narrative embraces it all: Chicago's wild beginnings, its reckless growth, its natural calamities (especially the Great Fire of 1871), its raucous politics, its empire-building businessmen, its world-transforming architecture, its rich mix of cultures, its community of young writers and journalists, and its staggering engineering projects -- which included the reversal of the Chicago River and raising the entire city from prairie mud to save it from devastating cholera epidemics. The saga of Chicago's unresolved struggle between order and freedom, growth and control, capitalism and community, remains instructive for our time, as we seek ways to build and maintain cities that retain their humanity without losing their energy. City of the Century throbs with the pulse of the great city it brilliantly brings to life.

A Cultural History of the Home in the Age of Enlightenment (Hardcover): Clive Edwards A Cultural History of the Home in the Age of Enlightenment (Hardcover)
Clive Edwards
R2,703 Discovery Miles 27 030 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

During the period of the Enlightenment, the word 'home' could refer to a specific and defined physical living space, the location of domestic life, and a concept related to ideas of roots, origins, and retreat. The transformations that the Enlightenment encouraged created the circumstances for the concept of home to change and develop in the following three ways. First to influence homemaking were the literary and cultural manifestations that included issues around attitudes to education, social order and disorder, sensibility, and sexuality. Secondly, were the roles of visual and material culture of the home that demonstrated themselves through print, portraiture, literature, objects and products, and dress and fashion. Thirdly, were the industrial and sociological aspects that included concepts of luxury, progress, trade and technology, consumption, domesticity, and the notions of public and private spaces within a home. The chapters in this volume therefore discuss and reflect upon issues relating to the home through a range of approaches. Enlightenment homes are examined in terms of signification and meaning; the persons who inhabited them; the physical buildings and their furniture and furnishings; the work undertaken within them; the differing roles of men and women; the nature of hospitality, and the important role of religion in the home. Taken together they give a valuable overview of the manners, customs, and operation of the Enlightenment home.

A Cultural History of the Home in the Age of Empire (Hardcover): Jane Hamlett A Cultural History of the Home in the Age of Empire (Hardcover)
Jane Hamlett
R2,703 Discovery Miles 27 030 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

During the 19th century the home, as both a cultural construct and a set of lived practices, became more powerful in the Western world than ever before. The West saw an unprecedented period of imperial expansion, industrialisation and commercialization that transformed both where and how people made their homes. Scientific advances and increasing mass production also changed homes materially, bringing in domestic technologies and new goods. This volume explores how homes and homemaking were imagined and practiced across the globe in the 19th century. For instance, not only did the acquisition of empires lead to the establishment of Western European homes in new terrains, but it also buttressed the way in which Europeans saw themselves, as the guardians of superior cultures, patriarchal relationships and living practices. During this period a powerful shared cultural idea of home emerged - championed by a growing urban middle class - that constructed home as a refuge from a chaotic and noisy industrialised world. Gender was an essential part of this idea. Both masculine and feminine virtues were expected to underpin the ideal home: a greater emphasis was placed on an ideal of the male breadwinner and the need for women to maintain the domestic material fabric and emotional environment was stressed. While these ideas were shared and propagated in print culture across Western Europe and North America there were huge differences in how they were realised and practiced. Home was experienced differently according to class and race; different forms of identity and levels of socio-economic resource fashioned a variety of home-making practices. While demonstrating the cultural importance of home, this book reveals the various ways in which home was lived in the 19th century.

Venanzio Rauzzini and the Birth of a New Style in English Singing - Scandalous Lessons (Hardcover): Brianna E.... Venanzio Rauzzini and the Birth of a New Style in English Singing - Scandalous Lessons (Hardcover)
Brianna E. Robertson-Kirkland
R4,134 Discovery Miles 41 340 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Since the eighteenth century, the one-to-one singing lesson has been the most common method of delivery. The scenario allows the teacher to familiarise and individualise the lesson to suit the needs of their student; however, it can also lead to speculation about what is taught. More troubling is the heightened risk of gossip and rumour with the private space generating speculation about the student-teacher relationship. Venanzio Rauzzini (1746-1810), an Italian castrato living in England who became a highly sought-after singing master, was particularly susceptible since his students tended to be women, whose moral character was under more scrutiny than their male counterparts. Even so in 1792, The Bath Chronicle proclaimed the Italian castrato: 'the father of a new style in English singing'. Branding Rauzzini as a founder of an English style was not an error, but indicative of deep-seated anxieties about the Italian invasion on England's musical culture. This book places teaching at the centre of the socio-historical narrative and provides unique insight into musical culture. Using a microhistory approach, this study is the first to focus in on the impact of teaching and casts new light on issues of celebrity culture, gender and nationalism in Georgian England.

How to be a Historian - Scholarly Personae in Historical Studies, 1800-2000 (Paperback): Herman Paul How to be a Historian - Scholarly Personae in Historical Studies, 1800-2000 (Paperback)
Herman Paul
R793 R710 Discovery Miles 7 100 Save R83 (10%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

This volume offers a stimulating new perspective on the history of historical studies. Through the prism of 'scholarly personae', it explores why historians care about attitudes or dispositions that they consider necessary for studying the past, yet often disagree about what virtues, skills, or competencies are most important. More specifically, the volume explains why models of virtue known as 'personae' have always been contested, yet also can prove remarkably stable, especially with regard to their race, class, and gender assumptions. Covering historical studies across Europe, North America, Africa, and East Asia, How to be a historian will appeal not only to historians of historiography, but to all historians who occasionally wonder: What kind of a historian do I want to be? -- .

The Tears of the Rajas - Mutiny, Money and Marriage in India 1805-1905 (Paperback): Ferdinand Mount The Tears of the Rajas - Mutiny, Money and Marriage in India 1805-1905 (Paperback)
Ferdinand Mount 1
R427 R296 Discovery Miles 2 960 Save R131 (31%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The Tears of the Rajasis a sweeping history of the British in India, seen through the experiences of a single Scottish family. For a century the Lows of Clatto survived mutiny, siege, debt and disease, everywhere from the heat of Madras to the Afghan snows. They lived through the most appalling atrocities and retaliated with some of their own. Each of their lives, remarkable in itself, contributes to the story of the whole fragile and imperilled, often shockingly oppressive and devious but now and then heroic and poignant enterprise. On the surface, John and Augusta Low and their relations may seem imperturbable, but in their letters and diaries they often reveal their loneliness and desperation and their doubts about what they are doing in India. The Lows are the family of the author's grandmother, and a recurring theme of the book is his own discovery of them and of those parts of the history of the British in India which posterity has preferred to forget. The book brings to life not only the most dramatic incidents of their careers - the massacre at Vellore, the conquest of Java, the deposition of the boy-king of Oudh, the disasters in Afghanistan, the Reliefs of Lucknow and Chitral - but also their personal ordeals: the bankruptcies in Scotland and Calcutta, the plagues and fevers, the deaths of children and deaths in childbirth. And it brings to life too the unrepeatable strangeness of their lives: the camps and the palaces they lived in, the balls and the flirtations in the hill stations, and the hot slow rides through the dust. An epic saga of love, war, intrigue and treachery, The Tears of the Rajas is surely destined to become a classic of its kind.

The Johnstown Flood (Paperback, 2nd Touchstone ed): David G McCullough The Johnstown Flood (Paperback, 2nd Touchstone ed)
David G McCullough
R534 R485 Discovery Miles 4 850 Save R49 (9%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

David McCullough is known to millions as the author of the critically acclaimed, best-selling books The Great Bridge, The Path Between the Seas, and Mornings on Horseback, and as host of the popular PBS television series "Smithsonian World?' The Johnstown Flood, David McCullough's first book, was praised by Time magazine as a "meticulously researched, vivid account of one of the most stunning disasters in U.S. history."

At the end of the last century, Johnstown,.Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hard-working families striving for a piece of the nation's burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity: among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. Despite repeated warnings of possible danger, nothing was done about the dam. Then came May 31, 1889, when the dam burst, sending a wall of water thundering down the mountain, smashing through Johnstown, and killing more than 2,000 townspeople. It was a tragedy that became a national scandal.

From research in the voluminous records, diaries, letters, interviews with numbers of survivors, and a rare, previously unknown transcript of a private investigation conducted by the Pennsylvania Railroad, David McCullough vividly re-creates the chain of events that led to the catastrophe, and then unfolds the incredible story of the flood itself and its aftermath.

Graced by David McCullough's remarkable gift for writing richly textured, sympathetic social history, The Johnstown Flood is an absorbing, classic portrait of life in 19th-century America, of overweening confidence, energy, and tragedy. It also offers a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly.

Orphan Trains to Missouri (Paperback, New): Michael D. Patrick, Evelyn Goodrich Trickel Orphan Trains to Missouri (Paperback, New)
Michael D. Patrick, Evelyn Goodrich Trickel
R393 R324 Discovery Miles 3 240 Save R69 (18%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Discusses the use of orphan trains to place orphaned or abandoned children in homes in nineteenth-century Missouri.

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