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Books > History > British & Irish history
'Coffin roads' along which bodies were carried for burial are a
marked feature of the landscape of the Scottish Highlands and
islands - many are now popular walking and cycling routes. This
book journeys along eight coffin roads to discover and explore the
distinctive traditions, beliefs and practices around dying, death
and mourning in the communities which created and used them. The
result is a fascinating snapshot into place and culture. After more
than a century when death was very much a taboo subject, this book
argues that aspects of the distinctive West Highland and Hebridean
way of death and approach to dying and mourning may have something
helpful and important to offer to us today. Routes covered in this
book are: The Kilmartin Valley - the archetypal coffin road in this
ritual landscape of the dead. The Street of the Dead on Iona -
perhaps the best known coffin road in Scotland. Kilearnadil
Graveyard, Jura - a perfect example of a Hebridean graveyard. The
coffin road through Morvern to Keil Church, Lochaline - among the
best defined and most evocative coffin roads today. The Green Isle,
Loch Shiel, Ardnamurchan - the oldest continuously used burial
place anywhere in Europe. The coffin road on Eigg - with its
distinctive 'piper's cairn' where the coffin of Donald MacQuarrie,
the 'Great Piper of Eigg', was rested. The coffin road from Traigh
Losgaintir to Loch Stocinis on Harris - popular with walkers and
taken as the title for a best-selling thriller by Peter May. The
coffin road on Barra - A detailed study of burial practices on
Barra in the early 1950s provides a fascinating record of Hebridean
attitudes to dying, death and mourning.
In 451 CE the Council of Chalcedon was called to assert the his
translation of the main Irish annalistic text up to 911 is designed
to make early Irish history more accessible to students of Irish
history. The contents of the text constitutes the principal
narrative source for carly Irish history, providing a fascinating
insight into the religious, social and political evolution of
Ireland and its people during this period. From 431 to 740 this
vital source of early Irish history was written on the small island
of Iona off the west coast of Scotland. From then it was contained
at monastery in the Irish midlands (most probably in Brega). This
new two-volume translation is accompanied by a thorough
introduction that places the annals of Ireland within a larger
historical context. The Chronicle of Ireland is an informative and
accessible introduction to the history of ancient Ireland for both
students and scholars of Irish history. Built up from various
individual writings, The Chronicle of Ireland is a truly unique
book and is as important to the history of Ireland as the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles is to the history of Britain.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER & THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF 2021
'Astonishing and compelling' Bernard Cornwell 'This superb book is
like a classical symphony, perfectly composed and exquisitely
performed' THE TIMES Books of the Year Follow bioarchaeologist Cat
Jarman - and the cutting-edge forensic techniques central to her
research - as she uncovers epic stories of the Viking age and
follows a small 'Carnelian' bead found in a Viking grave in
Derbyshire to its origins thousands of miles to the east in
Gujarat. 'This superb book is like a classical symphony, perfectly
composed and exquisitely performed' THE TIMES Books of the Year Dr
Cat Jarman is a bioarchaeologist, specialising in forensic
techniques to research the paths of Vikings who came to rest in
British soil. By examining teeth that are now over one thousand
years old, she can determine childhood diet, and thereby where a
person was likely born. With radiocarbon dating, she can ascertain
a death date down to the range of a few years. And her research
offers new visions of the likely roles of women and children in
Viking culture. In 2017, a carnelian bead came into her temporary
possession. River Kings sees her trace its path back to
eighth-century Baghdad and India, discovering along the way that
the Vikings' route was far more varied than we might think, that
with them came people from the Middle East, not just Scandinavia,
and that the reason for this unexpected integration between the
Eastern and Western worlds may well have been a slave trade running
through the Silk Road, and all the way to Britain. Told as a
riveting story of the Vikings and the methods we use to understand
them, this is a major reassessment of the fierce,
often-mythologised voyagers of the north, and of the global
medieval world as we know it.
Building on the success of previous editions, Politics in the
Republic of Ireland continues to provide an authoritative
introduction to all aspects of government and politics in this
seventh edition. Written by some of the foremost experts on Irish
politics, it explains, analyses and interprets the background to
Irish government and contemporary political processes. It devotes
chapters to every aspect of contemporary Irish government and
politics, including the political parties and elections, the
constitution, deliberative democracy, referendums, the Taoiseach
and the governmental system, women and politics, the position of
the Dáil, and Ireland’s place within the European Union.
Bringing readers up to date with the very latest developments,
especially with the upheaval in the Irish party system and the
implications of recent liberalising referendums, PRI7 combines
substance with a highly readable style, providing an accessible
book that meets the needs of all those who are interested in
knowing how politics and government operate in Ireland.
The turbulent Tudor age never fails to capture the imagination. But
what was it actually like to be a woman during this period? This
was a time when death in infancy or during childbirth was rife;
when marriage was usually a legal contract, not a matter for love,
and the education of women was minimal at best. Yet the Tudor
century was also dominated by powerful and characterful women in a
way that no era had been before. Elizabeth Norton explores the
seven ages of the Tudor woman, from childhood to old age, through
the diverging examples of women such as Elizabeth Tudor, Henry
VIII's sister who died in infancy; Cecily Burbage, Elizabeth's wet
nurse; Mary Howard, widowed but influential at court; Elizabeth
Boleyn, mother of a controversial queen; and Elizabeth Barton, a
peasant girl who would be lauded as a prophetess. Their stories are
interwoven with studies of topics ranging from Tudor toys to
contraception to witchcraft, painting a portrait of the lives of
queens and serving maids, nuns and harlots, widows and chaperones.
Much writing on men in the field of gender studies tends to focus
unduly, almost exclusively, on portraying men as villains and women
as victims in a moral bi-polar paradigm. Re-Thinking Men reverses
the proclivity which ignores not only the positive contributions of
men to society, but also the male victims of life including the
homeless, the incarcerated, the victims of homicide, suicide,
accidents, war and the draft, and sexism, as well as those affected
by the failures of the health, education, political and justice
systems. Proceeding from a radically different perspective in
seeking a more positive, balanced and inclusive view of men (and
women), this book presents three contrasting paradigms of men as
Heroes, Villains and Victims. With the development of a comparative
and revised gender perspective drawing on US, Canadian and UK
sources, this book will be of interest to scholars across a range
of social sciences.
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Shakespeare
(Hardcover)
Joseph Piercy
1
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R306
R205
Discovery Miles 2 050
Save R101 (33%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Amazing & Extraordinary Facts: Shakespeare is a fascinating
collection of surprising revelations, quirky characters and other
fascinating pieces of trivia from the world of the great English
bard. From the stories behind his well-known plays and poems,
through the actors and theatres that have entertained his works, to
his legacy in popular culture and beyond, an intriguing and unusual
history of his life and times is revealed. Drawing back the
curtains on this iconic English character, there is something here
for every enthusiast to relish. This authoritative and absorbing
book is published to coincide with the 400th Anniversary of
Shakespeare's death on 23rd April 2016.
It was famously the scene of Charles and Diana's nightmare marriage
and Charles's serial adulteries. But then Kensington Palace has a
long history of royal philandering. George II installed his wife
and mistress in the palace, for example, and made his mistress
sleep in a room so damp there were said to be mushrooms growing on
the walls. And then there were the eccentrics. George III's sixth
son, Augustus, Duke of Sussex, became a virtual recluse at the
palace. He collected hundreds of clocks and mechanical toys,
thousands of early Bibles and dozens of songbirds that were allowed
to fly freely through the royal apartments. Today, the palace is
home to the future King William and his wife Catherine, and until
recently home to the newly married Duke and Duchess of Sussex,
Harry and Meghan. Tom Quinn takes the reader behind the official
version of palace history to discover intriguing, sometimes wild,
often scandalous, but frequently heart-warming stories.
'An important and timely book.' - Philippa Gregory Joan of Navarre
was the richest woman in the land, at a time when war-torn England
was penniless. Eleanor Cobham was the wife of a weak king's uncle -
and her husband was about to fall from grace. Jacquetta Woodville
was a personal enemy of Warwick the Kingmaker, who was about to
take his revenge. Elizabeth Woodville was the widowed mother of a
child king, fighting Richard III for her children's lives. In Royal
Witches, Gemma Hollman explores the lives of these four unique
women, looking at how rumours of witchcraft brought them to their
knees in a time when superstition and suspicion was rife.
This collection gathers together 31 previously out-of-print titles
focusing on revolution - the political, economic, military and
social aspects of the overthrow of state power. Ranging from
nineteenth-century France to late-twentieth-century Caribbean,
these books analyse the forms of revolt and the aftermaths of
revolution, examining the types of government that result and the
reactions of international opinion.
Marking the third centenary of the office of Prime Minister, this
book tells its extraordinary story, explaining how and why it has
endured longer than any other democratic political office in world
history. Sir Anthony Seldon, historian of Number 10 Downing Street,
explores the lives and careers, loves and scandals, successes and
failures, of all our great Prime Ministers. From Robert Walpole and
William Pitt the Younger, to Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher,
Seldon discusses which of our Prime Ministers have been most
effective and why. He reveals the changing relationship between the
Monarchy and the office of the Prime Minister in intimate detail,
describing how the increasing power of the Prime Minister in
becoming leader of Britain coincided with the steadily falling
influence of the Monarchy. This book celebrates the humanity and
frailty, work and achievement, of these 55 remarkable individuals,
who averted revolution and civil war, leading the country through
times of peace, crisis and war.
This book tells a true detective story set mainly in Elizabethan
London during the years of cold war just before the Armada of 1588.
The mystery is the identity of a spy working in a foreign embassy
to frustrate Catholic conspiracy and propaganda aimed at the
overthrow of Queen Elizabeth and her government. The suspects in
the case are the inmates of the house, an old building in the
warren of streets and gardens between Fleet Street and the Thames.
These include the ambassador, a civilized Frenchman, his wife, his
daughter, his secretary, his clerk and his priest, the tutor, the
chef, the butler, and the concierge. They also include a runaway
friar, the Neapolitan philosopher, poet, and comedian Giordano
Bruno, who wrote masterpieces of Italian literature, who was later
burned in Rome for his anti-papal opinions, and who has been
revered in Italy for his honorable and heroic resistance to papal
authority. Others in the cast are Queen Elizabeth, her formidable
secretary of state Sir Francis Walsingham, and King Henry III of
France; poets, courtiers, and scholars; statesmen, conspirators,
go-betweens, and stool-pigeons. When not in London, the action
takes place in Paris and Oxford; a good deal of it happens on the
river Thames. The hero or villain, who calls himself Fagot, does
his work most effectively, is not found out, and disappears. In the
first part of the book these events are narrated. In the second the
spy is identified and his story put together. John Bossy's
brilliant research, backed by his forensic and literary skills,
solves a centuries-old mystery. His book makes a major contribution
to the political and intellectual history of the wars of religion
in Europe and to the domestic history of Elizabethan England. Not
least, it is compelling reading.
Here is the story of Ireland's Civil War in colour - a defining
moment in Irish history brought to life for the first time in
hand-coloured photographs. The events of 1922-1923 are revealed
using photographs painstakingly hand-coloured by John O'Byrne. His
attention to detail gives a vivid authenticity that brings the
events alive. Many of these photographs, carefully selected from
archives and private collections, have never been published before.
They carry informative captions by Michael B. Barry, based on
extensive historical research. This richly illustrated book gives a
fresh perspective to the conflict. If you want a better
understanding of the story of the Irish Civil War, this is the book
for you.
Down the centuries, poets have provided Wales with a window onto
its own distinctive world. This book gives the general reader a
sense of the view to be seen through that special window in twelve
illustrated poems, each bringing very different periods and aspects
of the Welsh past into focus. Together, the poems give the flavour
of a poetic tradition, both ancient and modern, that is
internationally renowned for its distinction, demonstrating how
Wales boast one of the oldest and yet continuing vibrant poetic
traditions, the former in the Welsh language and the latter in
English and bilingually.
The fascinating history of poetry anthologies and their influence
on British society and culture over the last four centuries. For
hundreds of years, anthologies have shaped the way we encounter
literature. Eighteenth-century children and young women were
introduced to the 'safe' bits of Shakespeare or Milton through
censored collections; Victorian working-class men and women
enrolled at adult learning institutions to be taught from The
Golden Treasury; First World War soldiers nursed copies of The
Oxford Book of English Verse in the trenches; pop-loving teenagers
growing up in the 1960s got their first taste of the counterculture
from the bestselling The Mersey Sound. But anthologies aren't just
part of literary history. Over the centuries, they have influenced
the course of British social change, redrawing the map of 'high'
and 'low' culture, generating conversations around politics,
morality, class, gender and belief. The Treasuries, by the literary
scholar and journalist Clare Bucknell, reveals the extraordinary
amount we can learn about our history from the anthologies that
brought readers together and changed the way they thought.
Shortlisted for the The Great Outdoors Awards - Outdoor Book of the
Year 2020 Shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain
Literature 2020 There are strange relics hidden across Scotland's
landscape: forgotten places that are touchstones to incredible
stories and past lives which still resonate today. Yet why are so
many of these 'wild histories' unnoticed and overlooked? And what
can they tell us about our own modern identity? From the high
mountain passes of an ancient droving route to a desolate moorland
graveyard, from uninhabited post-industrial islands and Clearance
villages to caves explored by early climbers and the mysterious
strongholds of Christian missionaries, Patrick Baker makes a series
of journeys on foot and by paddle. Along the way, he encounters
Neolithic settlements, bizarre World War Two structures, evidence
of illicit whisky production, sacred wells and Viking burial
grounds. Combining a rich fusion of travelogue and historical
narrative, he threads themes of geology, natural and social
history, literature, and industry from the places he visits,
discovering connections between people and place more powerful than
can be imagined.
THE SUNDAY TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 SHORTLISTED FOR THE
BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2022 Eleven years when Britain had no king.
In 1649 Britain was engulfed by revolution. On a raw January
afternoon, the Stuart king, Charles I, was executed for treason.
Within weeks the English monarchy had been abolished and the
'useless and dangerous' House of Lords discarded. The people, it
was announced, were now the sovereign force in the land. What this
meant, and where it would lead, no one knew. The Restless Republic
is the story of the extraordinary decade that followed. It takes as
its guides the people who lived through those years. Among them is
Anna Trapnel, the daughter of a Deptford shipwright whose visions
transfixed the nation. John Bradshaw, the Cheshire lawyer who found
himself trying the King. Marchamont Nedham, the irrepressible
newspaper man and puppet master of propaganda. Gerrard Winstanley,
who strove for a Utopia of common ownership where no one went
hungry. William Petty, the precocious scientist whose mapping of
Ireland prefaced the dispossession of tens of thousands. And the
indomitable Countess of Derby who defended to the last the final
Royalist stronghold on the Isle of Man. The Restless Republic
ranges from London to Leith, Cornwall to Connacht, from the
corridors of power to the common fields and hillsides. Gathering
her cast of trembling visionaries and banished royalists, dextrous
mandarins and bewildered bystanders, Anna Keay brings to vivid life
the most extraordinary and experimental decade in Britain's
history. It is the story of how these tempestuous years set the
British Isles on a new course, and of what happened when a
conservative people tried revolution.
For fans of "The Tulip" and "Orchid Fever," a captivating account
of big business, adventure and family intrigue in the horticultural
world.
For over a century and across five generations, one Scottish family
pioneered the introduction of hundreds of new plants into gardens,
conservatories and houses and became the foremost European
cultivators and hybridizers of their day. The story begins in 1768
when a Scotsman named John Veitch went to England to find his
fortune, starting out as a gardener for the aristocracy. Realizing
that horticultural mania had begun to spread throughout the
population, Veitch and his wife opened a nursery and began to send
the first commercial plant collectors to North and South America,
Australia, India, Japan, China and the South Seas. These plant
collectors were among the first people allowed into the countries
of the Far East and the tales of their travels, many of them
perilous and some fatal, are wonderful adventure stories. Combining
an historian's eye for detail with a flair for storytelling, the
author charts the fortunes of one family and through them tells the
fascinating story of the modern garden.
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Belfast '69
Andrew Walsh
Paperback
R478
Discovery Miles 4 780
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