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Books > History > World history > 1750 to 1900

Parallel Lives - Romans and the American Founders (Paperback): Karl Baughman, Brook Poston Parallel Lives - Romans and the American Founders (Paperback)
Karl Baughman, Brook Poston
R1,202 Discovery Miles 12 020 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Appeals to readers of varied interests across historical times and places. In addition to attracting students of the early-U.S. and late-Roman republics, amateur historians who enjoy connections between the classical past and modern world will find the work useful and entertaining. This work also demonstrates the continued need for connecting different fields of history, while also helping students understand their connection to the ancient past.

Evangelicals and the Philosophy of Science - The Victoria Institute, 1865-1939 (Paperback): Stuart Mathieson Evangelicals and the Philosophy of Science - The Victoria Institute, 1865-1939 (Paperback)
Stuart Mathieson
R1,282 Discovery Miles 12 820 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This book investigates the debates around religion and science at the influential Victoria Institute. Founded in London in 1865, and largely drawn from the evangelical wing of the Church of England, it had as its prime objective the defence of 'the great truths revealed in Holy Scripture' from 'the opposition of science, falsely so called'. The conflict for them was not between science and religion directly, but what exactly constituted true science. Chapters cover the Victoria Institute's formation, its heyday in the late nineteenth century, and its decline in the years following the First World War. They show that at stake was more than any particular theory; rather, it was an entire worldview, combining theology, epistemology, and philosophy of science. Therefore, instead of simply offering a survey of religious responses to evolutionary theory, this study demonstrates the complex relationship between science, evangelical religion, and society in the years after Darwin's Origin of Species. It also offers some insight as to why conservative evangelicals did not display the militancy of some American fundamentalists with whom they shared so many of their intellectual commitments. Filling in a significant gap in the literature around modern attitudes to religion and science, this book will be of keen interest to scholars of Religious Studies, the History of Religion, and Science and Religion.

The Housekeeper's Tale - The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House (Paperback): Tessa Boase The Housekeeper's Tale - The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House (Paperback)
Tessa Boase
R314 R235 Discovery Miles 2 350 Save R79 (25%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

'I read the book with enormous appreciation. Tessa Boase brings all these long-ago housekeepers so movingly to life and her excitement in the research is palpable.' Fay Weldon: Novelist, playwright - and housekeeper's daughter Revelatory, gripping and unexpectedly poignant, this is the story of the invisible women who ran the English country house. Working as a housekeeper was one of the most prestigious jobs a nineteenth and early twentieth century woman could want - and also one of the toughest. A far cry from the Downton Abbey fiction, the real life Mrs Hughes was up against capricious mistresses, low pay, no job security and gruelling physical labour. Until now, her story has never been told. Revealing the personal sacrifices, bitter disputes and driving ambition that shaped these women's careers, and delving into secret diaries, unpublished letters and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories of five working women who ran some of Britain's most prominent households. From Dorothy Doar, Regency housekeeper for the obscenely wealthy 1st Duke and Duchess of Sutherland at Trentham Hall, Staffordshire, to Sarah Wells, a deaf and elderly Victorian in charge of Uppark, West Sussex. From Ellen Penketh, Edwardian cook-housekeeper at the sociable but impecunious Erddig Hall in the Welsh borders to Hannah Mackenzie who runs Wrest Park in Bedfordshire - Britain's first country-house war hospital, bankrolled by playwright J. M. Barrie. And finally Grace Higgens, cook-housekeeper to the Bloomsbury set at Charleston farmhouse in East Sussex for half a century - an era defined by the Second World War. Normal0falsefalsefalseEN-GBX-NONEX-NONE

A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction - A Nation of Rights (Hardcover): Laura F. Edwards A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction - A Nation of Rights (Hardcover)
Laura F. Edwards
R2,237 Discovery Miles 22 370 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Although hundreds of thousands of people died fighting in the American Civil War, perhaps the war's biggest casualty was the nation's legal order. A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction explores the implications of this major change by bringing legal history into dialogue with the scholarship of other historical fields. Federal policy on slavery and race, particularly the three Reconstruction amendments, are the best-known legal innovations of the era. Change, however, permeated all levels of the legal system, altering Americans' relationship to the law and allowing them to move popular conceptions of justice into the ambit of government policy. The results linked Americans to the nation through individual rights, which were extended to more people and, as a result of new claims, were reimagined to cover a wider array of issues. But rights had limits in what they could accomplish, particularly when it came to the collective goals that so many ordinary Americans advocated.

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Memory (Hardcover): Sharon Deane-Cox, Anneleen Spiessens The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Memory (Hardcover)
Sharon Deane-Cox, Anneleen Spiessens
R6,568 Discovery Miles 65 680 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Memory serves as a timely and unique resource for the current boom in thinking around translation and memory. The Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of a contemporary, and as yet unconsolidated, research landscape with a four-section structure which encompasses both current debate and future trajectories. Twenty-four chapters written by leading and emerging international scholars provide a cross-sectional snapshot of the diverse angles of approach and case studies that have thus far driven research into translation and memory. A valuable, far-reaching range of theoretical, empirical, reflective, comparative, and archival approaches are brought to bear on translational sites of memory and mnemonic sites of translation through the examination of topics such as traumatic, postcolonial, cultural, literary, and translator memory. This Handbook is key reading for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in translation studies, memory studies, and related areas.

The Museums of Contemporary Art - Notion and Development (Paperback): J.Pedro Lorente The Museums of Contemporary Art - Notion and Development (Paperback)
J.Pedro Lorente
R1,357 Discovery Miles 13 570 Ships in 9 - 15 working days

Where, how, by whom and for what were the first museums of contemporary art created? These are the key questions addressed by J. Pedro Lorente in this new book. In it he explores the concept and history of museums of contemporary art, and the shifting ways in which they have been imagined and presented. Following an introduction that sets out the historiography and considering questions of terminology, the first part of the book then examines the paradigm of the Musee des Artistes Vivants in Paris and its equivalents in the rest of Europe during the nineteenth century. The second part takes the story forward from 1930 to the present, presenting New York's Museum of Modern Art as a new universal role model that found emulators or 'contramodels' in the rest of the Western world during the twentieth century. An epilogue, reviews recent museum developments in the last decades. Through its adoption of a long-term, worldwide perspective, the book not only provides a narrative of the development of museums of contemporary art, but also sets this into its international perspective. By assessing the extent to which the great museum-capitals - Paris, London and New York in particular - created their own models of museum provision, as well as acknowledging the influence of such models elsewhere, the book uncovers fascinating perspectives on the practice of museum provision, and reveals how present cultural planning initiatives have often been shaped by historical uses.

National Indifference and the History of Nationalism in Modern Europe (Paperback): Jon Fox, Maarten Van Ginderachter National Indifference and the History of Nationalism in Modern Europe (Paperback)
Jon Fox, Maarten Van Ginderachter
R1,098 Discovery Miles 10 980 Ships in 9 - 15 working days

National indifference is one of the most innovative notions historians have brought to the study of nationalism in recent years. The concept questions the mass character of nationalism in East Central Europe at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Ordinary people were not in thrall to the nation; they were often indifferent, ambivalent or opportunistic when dealing with issues of nationhood. As with all ground-breaking research, the literature on national indifference has not only revolutionized how we understand nationalism, over time, it has also revealed a new set of challenges. This volume brings together experienced scholars with the next generation, in a collaborative effort to push the geographic, historical, and conceptual boundaries of national indifference 2.0.

Hunger and Famine in the Long Nineteenth Century (Hardcover): Gail Turley Houston Hunger and Famine in the Long Nineteenth Century (Hardcover)
Gail Turley Houston
R3,856 Discovery Miles 38 560 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This volume examines the sub-topics on the use of the metaphor of hunger to describe the condition of women as well as to a sub-topic on invisible poverty and hunger after Chartism failed. As Disraeli noted, there were still two Englands "fed by a different food."

Hunger and Famine in the Long Nineteenth Century (Hardcover): Gail Turley Houston Hunger and Famine in the Long Nineteenth Century (Hardcover)
Gail Turley Houston
R3,851 Discovery Miles 38 510 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The Hungry Forties and the Great Famine, with their horrifying monikers, deserve a section just for the many voices engaged in political, humanitarian, and social venues in juxtaposition to the voices of the starving. This volume shows how rhetoric itself experiences a crisis of representation in the face of such dramatic, tragic events: how does a culture deal with its own chosen guilty and irrational psychological motives for casting a blind eye to famine within its own borders?

Hunger and Famine in the Long Nineteenth Century (Hardcover): Gail Turley Houston Hunger and Famine in the Long Nineteenth Century (Hardcover)
Gail Turley Houston
R3,842 Discovery Miles 38 420 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Capturing Dorothy Hartley's point that there was "a dislocation of the food supply" during the Industrial Revolution, which occurred through the enclosure movement, the poor laws, the game and corn laws (qtd. in Consuming Fictions 8), this section would begin with the date of Thomas Malthus's "Principle of Population" (1798) to capture voices invoked during the lead up to the Reform Bill of 1832.

Parallel Lives - Romans and the American Founders (Hardcover): Karl Baughman, Brook Poston Parallel Lives - Romans and the American Founders (Hardcover)
Karl Baughman, Brook Poston
R4,150 Discovery Miles 41 500 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Appeals to readers of varied interests across historical times and places. In addition to attracting students of the early-U.S. and late-Roman republics, amateur historians who enjoy connections between the classical past and modern world will find the work useful and entertaining. This work also demonstrates the continued need for connecting different fields of history, while also helping students understand their connection to the ancient past.

The Lost King of France - The Tragic Story of Marie-Antoinette's Favourite Son (Paperback): Deborah Cadbury The Lost King of France - The Tragic Story of Marie-Antoinette's Favourite Son (Paperback)
Deborah Cadbury
R331 Discovery Miles 3 310 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

'This is history as it should be. It is stunningly written, I could not put it down. This is the best account of the French Revolution I have ever read.' Alison Weir, author of 'Henry VIII, King and Court' The fascinating, moving story of the brief life and many possible deaths of Louis XVII, son of Marie-Antoinette. Louis-Charles Bourbon enjoyed a charmed early childhood in the gilded palace of Versailles. At the age of four, he became the Dauphin, heir to the most powerful throne in Europe. Yet within five years, he was to lose everything. Drawn into the horror of the French Revolution, his family was incarcerated. Two years later, following the brutal execution of both his parents, the Revolutionary leaders declared Louis XVII was dead. No grave was dug, no monument built to mark his passing. Immediately, rumours spread that the Prince had, in fact, escaped from prison and was still alive. Others believed that he had been murdered, his heart cut out and preserved as a relic. In time, his older sister, Marie-Therese, who survived the Revolution, was approached by countless 'brothers' who claimed not only his name, but also his inheritance. Several 'Princes' were plausible, but which, if any, was the real Louis-Charles? Deborah Cadbury's 'The Lost King of France' is a moving and dramatic story which conclusively reveals the identity of the young prince who was lost in the tower. This book is available as a print-on-demand product only.

Sinology during the Cold War (Hardcover): Antonina Luszczykiewicz, Michael Brose Sinology during the Cold War (Hardcover)
Antonina Luszczykiewicz, Michael Brose
R4,153 Discovery Miles 41 530 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This volume provides the first study of the history of sinology (aka China studies) as charted across several communist states during the Cold War. The People's Republic of China was created in the first years of the Cold War, with its early history and foreign policy intimately bound up in that larger geopolitical fight. All the seismic changes in China's geopolitical landscape-from its emergence and close relationship with the Soviet Union, to the Sino-Soviet split and the eventual rapprochement with the United States-resulted in a great deal of interest by journalists, politicians, and scholars. Yet, although scholars across the Soviet Bloc produced an impressive body of work on a range of sinological studies, with rare exceptions most of those scholars and their work remains unknown outside their own intellectual circles. This book redresses this dearth of knowledge of sinological scholarship, providing invaluable and unique glimpses of Soviet Bloc sinologists and their work during the Cold War, including cutting-edge research on lesser-studied communist states such as Poland, Hungary, Mongolia, and others. International in scope, this book is ideal for scholars and researchers of modern history, Chinese studies, sinology, and the Cold War.

Ireland Since the Famine - Volume 2 (Paperback): F.S.L. Lyons Ireland Since the Famine - Volume 2 (Paperback)
F.S.L. Lyons
R511 R374 Discovery Miles 3 740 Save R137 (27%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days
Alexandria - The Quest for the Lost City (Paperback): Edmund Richardson Alexandria - The Quest for the Lost City (Paperback)
Edmund Richardson
R295 R233 Discovery Miles 2 330 Save R62 (21%) Ships in 3 - 5 working days

'Not all lost cities are real, but this one was.' The extraordinary story of Alexander the Great's lost city, and a quest to unravel one of the most captivating mysteries in ancient history. 'Superb ... impeccably researched, but with the pace and deftly woven plot complexity of a John le Carre novel ... utterly brilliant' William Dalrymple, Guardian '[An] exceptional biography ... This is a jewel of a book' Sunday Times 'A brilliant and evocative biography, written with consummate scholarship, great style and wit' Daily Telegraph ______ For centuries the city of Alexandria Beneath the Mountains was a meeting point of East and West. Then it vanished. In 1833 it was discovered in Afghanistan by the unlikeliest person imaginable: Charles Masson, an ordinary working-class boy from London turned deserter, pilgrim, doctor, archaeologist and highly respected scholar. On the way into one of history's most extraordinary stories, Masson would take tea with kings, travel with holy men and become the master of a hundred disguises; he would see things no westerner had glimpsed before and few have glimpsed since. He would spy for the East India Company and be suspected of spying for Russia at the same time, for this was the era of the Great Game, when imperial powers confronted each other in these staggeringly beautiful lands. Masson discovered tens of thousands of pieces of Afghan history, including the 2,000-year-old Bimaran golden casket, which has upon it the earliest known face of the Buddha. He would be offered his own kingdom; he would change the world, and the world would destroy him. This is a wild journey through nineteenth-century India and Afghanistan, with impeccably researched storytelling that shows us a world of espionage and dreamers, ne'er-do-wells and opportunists, extreme violence both personal and military, and boundless hope. At the edge of empire, amid the deserts and the mountains, it is the story of an obsession passed down the centuries. **Chosen as a Book of the Year by the Spectator, Listener and Sydney Morning Herald**

Ireland Since the Famine - Volume 1 (Paperback): F.S.L. Lyons Ireland Since the Famine - Volume 1 (Paperback)
F.S.L. Lyons
R511 R374 Discovery Miles 3 740 Save R137 (27%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days
Ralph Ayres' Cookery Book (Hardcover): Jane Jakeman Ralph Ayres' Cookery Book (Hardcover)
Jane Jakeman; Introduction by David Vaisey
R499 Discovery Miles 4 990 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Every day at noon in the dining hall of New College, Oxford in the 1770s, a feast was laid for students and the dons, clad in white waistcoats and wigs. They sat down to cod with oysters, ham, fowls, boiled beef, rabbits smothered with onions, mutton, veal collops, pork griskins, New College Puddings, mince pies, and roots (vegetables). That was only the first course. For the second course, they were served roast turkey, a haunch of venison, a brace of woodcocks, snipes, veal olives, trifle, blancmange, stewed pippins, and preserved quinces. Ralph Ayres was the genius behind this daily repast, and his choice recipes are chronicled here in "Ralph Ayres' Cookery Book,"
If you've ever wondered what a London Wigg was or why plum cake does not actually contain plums, "Ralph Ayres' Cookery Book" will prove to be a most rewarding collection. Here the details of sumptuous British meals are meticulously presented, as is their larger context in the history of cooking. Recipes for such famous dishes as Quaking Pudding, Oxford Sausages, Damson Preserve, and other savory English delights fill the pages. Some, such as the famous New College Pudding, are still used today. The volume is beautifully produced, featuring a wealth of full-color botanical illustrations and elegant script reproduced from the original text, and also includes an informative foreword by Bodleian emeritus librarian David Vaisey.
A captivating glimpse into the world of eighteenth-century food and the culture of academia's apex, "Ralph Ayres' Cookery Book" is a valuable and engaging historical chronicle of British cuisine. It will appeal to social and culinary historians, as well as to the many lovers of griskin andcollops.

Henry Redhead Yorke, Colonial Radical - Politics and Identity in the Atlantic World, 1772-1813 (Paperback): Amanda Goodrich Henry Redhead Yorke, Colonial Radical - Politics and Identity in the Atlantic World, 1772-1813 (Paperback)
Amanda Goodrich
R1,280 Discovery Miles 12 800 Ships in 9 - 15 working days

This is a political, cultural and intellectual biography of the neglected but important figure, Henry Redhead Yorke. A West Indian of African/British descent, born into a slave society but educated in Georgian England, he developed a complex identity to which politics was key. The most revolutionary radical in Britain between 1793-5, Yorke then recanted his radicalism and died a loyalist gentleman. This book raises important issues about the impact of "outsider" politics in England and the complexities of politicization and identity construction in the Atlantic World. It restores a forgotten black writer to his due place in history.

The Gages of Hengrave and Suffolk Catholicism, 1640-1767 (Hardcover): Francis Young The Gages of Hengrave and Suffolk Catholicism, 1640-1767 (Hardcover)
Francis Young
R1,496 Discovery Miles 14 960 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Account of an important Catholic family in early modern East Anglia, demonstrating their influence upon their wider community. For almost 250 years the Gages of Hengrave Hall, near Bury St Edmunds, were the leading Roman Catholic family in Suffolk, and the sponsors and protectors of most Catholic missionary endeavours in the western half of the county. This book traces their rise from an offshoot of a Sussex recusant family, to the extinction of the senior line in 1767, when the Gages became the Rookwood Gages. Drawing for the first time on the extensive records of the Gage familyin Cambridge University Library, the book considers the Gages as part of the wider Catholic community of Bury St Edmunds and west Suffolk, and includes transcriptions of selected family letters as well as the surviving eighteenth-century Benedictine and Jesuit mission registers for Bury St Edmunds. Although the Gages were the wealthiest and most influential Catholics in the region, the gradual separation and independent growth of the urban Catholic community in Bury St Edmunds challenges the idea that eighteenth-century Catholicism in the south of England was moribund and "seigneurial". The author argues that in the end, the Gages' achievement was to create a Catholic community that could eventually survive without their patronage. Francis Young gained his doctorate from the University of Cambridge.

Foreign Fighters and Multinational Armies - From Civil Conflicts to Coalition Wars, 1848-2015 (Hardcover): Steven... Foreign Fighters and Multinational Armies - From Civil Conflicts to Coalition Wars, 1848-2015 (Hardcover)
Steven O'connor, Guillaume Piketty
R4,146 Discovery Miles 41 460 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This book showcases new historical research on foreign soldiers, including an overview of the early modern period and numerous case studies which cover the last 175 years and stretch over 5 continents. The last two decades have seen the term 'foreign fighter' enter our everyday vocabulary. The insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Syrian Civil War and the rise and fall of the Islamic State group have sparked public interest in the phenomenon of people choosing to leave their own country and fight in a foreign conflict. Foreign fighters, their origins, motives, activities and potential danger to their home countries have become subjects of debate, attracting contributions from politicians, military personnel, the media, political scientists, legal scholars but to a much lesser extent from historians. The ten essayss in this volume showcase new historical research on foreign military labour. The aim of the volume is to better understand the experiences and challenges faced by both the foreigners and the host country, particularly its armed forces, and to highlight the significance of these trends to the contemporary debate on foreign fighters. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal European Review of History.

British Protestant Missions and the Conversion of Europe, 1600-1900 (Paperback): Simone Maghenzani, Stefano Villani British Protestant Missions and the Conversion of Europe, 1600-1900 (Paperback)
Simone Maghenzani, Stefano Villani
R1,293 Discovery Miles 12 930 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This book is the first account of British Protestant conversion initiatives directed towards continental Europe between 1600 and 1900. Continental Europe was considered a missionary land-another periphery of the world, whose centre was imperial Britain. British missions to Europe were informed by religious experiments in America, Africa, and Asia, rendering these offensives against Europe a true form of "imaginary colonialism". British Protestant missionaries often understood themselves to be at the forefront of a civilising project directed at Catholics (and sometimes even at other Protestants). Their mission was further reinforced by Britain becoming a land of compassionate refuge for European dissenters and exiles. This book engages with the myth of International Protestantism, questioning its early origins and its narrative of transnational belonging, while also interrogating Britain as an imagined Protestant land of hope and glory. In the history of western Christianities, "converting Europe" had a role that has not been adequately investigated. This is the story of the attempted, and ultimately failed, effort to convert a continent.

The Grand Strategies of Great Powers (Paperback): Tudor A. Onea The Grand Strategies of Great Powers (Paperback)
Tudor A. Onea
R1,293 Discovery Miles 12 930 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

What is grand strategy and what is it good for? What are great powers, and which states are great powers today? What are the grand strategies available to great powers? What are the conditions under which a certain strategy is suitable and when should it be rejected? What are the factors affecting the success or failure of a given grand strategy? The present volume provides answers to these questions by introducing a typology of great power grand strategies, as strategies of rising, status quo, and declining powers, as well as through historical illustrations of each type. The reader is thus exposed to strategies such as divide and conquer, biding your time, opportunity strike, primacy, semi-detachment, concert, and appeasement through the experiences of leaders such as Bismarck, Peter the Great, Metternich, Deng Xiaoping, Neville Chamberlain, and Stalin. This analysis is then brought to bear on present developments in the grand strategies of the United States, China, and Russia. The volume should be of interest to both the academic and foreign policy-making communities, and in particular to students of international relations, diplomacy, history, and current international affairs.

The Exorcist of Sombor - The Mentality of an Eighteenth-Century Franciscan Friar (Paperback): Daniel Barth The Exorcist of Sombor - The Mentality of an Eighteenth-Century Franciscan Friar (Paperback)
Daniel Barth
R1,271 Discovery Miles 12 710 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The Exorcist of Sombor examines the life course, practice and mentality of an eighteenth-century Franciscan friar, based on his own letters and documentation, creating a frame around the tightly packed history of events that took place between 1766-1769, and analysing the series of exorcism scandals that erupted in the Hungarian town of Sombor, from the perspectives of social history and cultural history. The author employs a method which reflects historical anthropology, the history of ideas and the influence of Italian microhistory. Based on the activity of an exorcist priest in the early modern period, the documents of the ecclesiastical courts and a considerable body of autograph correspondence are thoroughly examined. Analysing these letters gives the reader a chance to come into close proximity with the way of thinking of a person from the eighteenth century. The research questions in connection to the documentation aim to identify the causes for the conflict. How was it possible to have "correct" and "wrong" methods of exorcism within the practice of one and the same church? What sort of criteria were used when certain previously accepted practices were dubbed superstitious in the second half of the eighteenth century? What were the changes that took place in the attitude of priests and friars within the ecclesiastical society of the period? How can a conflict be focussed on a practice (healing by exorcism) which has roots going back thousands of years? How many different variants of demonology existed in the clerical thinking of the age? As a highly accomplished source analysis within microhistory, The Exorcist of Sombor will be of great interest to early modern historians, anthropologists and culture researchers interested in microhistory and themes such as religion, magic, occultism and witchcraft.

Regency, Riot and Reform (Paperback): Jo Draper Regency, Riot and Reform (Paperback)
Jo Draper
R153 Discovery Miles 1 530 Ships in 12 - 17 working days
The Fortune Hunter - A German Prince in Regency England (Paperback): Peter James Bowman The Fortune Hunter - A German Prince in Regency England (Paperback)
Peter James Bowman
R459 Discovery Miles 4 590 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The two decades after Waterloo marked the great age of foreign fortune hunters in England. Each year brought a new influx of impecunious Continental noblemen to the world's richest country, and the more brides they carried off, the more alarmed society became. The most colourful of these men was Prince Hermann von Puckler-Muskau (1785-1871), remembered today as Germany's finest landscape gardener. In the mid-1820s, however, his efforts to turn his estate into a magnificent park came close to bankrupting him. To save his legacy his wife Lucie devised an unusual plan: they would divorce so that Puckler could marry an heiress who would finance further landscaping and, after a decent interval, be cajoled into accepting Lucie's continued residence. In September 1826, his marriage dissolved, Puckler set off for London. Drawing on the daily letters sent from England to his ex-wife and other manuscript sources in the Puckler Archive in Brandenburg, Peter James Bowman gives blow-by-blow accounts of Puckler's courtships with the daughters of a physician, an admiral, a Scottish baronet, an East India Company stockholder and a retail jeweller. The story is enriched with details of his social life among the resident diplomats, his gambling and money troubles, his love affairs with a French seamstress and a German opera singer, and the hours he spent with the capital's prostitutes. Puckler is the most intelligent of the overseas visitors who noted their impressions of Regency England. His matrimonial quest brings him into contact with such luminaries as Walter Scott, George Canning, Princess Lieven, Nathan Mayer Rothschild, Beau Brummell and John Nash. The object of many rumours and caricatures, the prince sticks doggedly to his task for nearly two years. And just when it seems that he has failed, England fills his coffers in the most unexpected way, and in doing so launches him on a new career. In telling the story of Puckler's adventures in the context of the trend for Anglo-European marriages based on the exchange of a title for money, The Fortune Hunter writes a new chapter in the history of England's relationship with its Continental neighbours.

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