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Books > Fiction > True stories > Discovery / historical / scientific
Local prosecution associations were a method of controlling crime
which was devised in the second half of the eighteenth century,
fifty years before the introduction of police forces. They were a
national phenomenon, and it is estimated that by the end of the
1700s around 4000 of them existed in England, but this book tells
the story of one particular society: the Hathersage Association for
the Prosecution of Felons and Other Offenders. Hathersage is a Peak
District village which recently came top in a Country Living poll
to determine the '20 best hidden gems in the UK'. The tourists who
now visit the village in their thousands each year come as walkers,
climbers, and cyclists. Its grimy history of wire and needle
manufacturing is almost forgotten. In addition to telling the story
of its ancient prosecution organisation, this book seeks to
illuminate some of the less conspicuous aspects of Hathersage's
social history by shining a light from the unusual direction of
minor crime and antisocial behaviour. It also describes the lives
of some of the residents of the village: minor gentry;
industrialists; clergy; and farmers, in addition to the mill
workers and labourers. With access to hand-written records going
back to 1784 which had never been studied before, the author has
drawn on contemporary newspaper articles and census returns to
assemble a montage which depicts the life of the village,
particularly during the 19th century. Many of these original
records have been reproduced in order to offer reader an
opportunity to interpret the old documents themselves. While
striving for historical accuracy throughout, the author has
produced a book which is both entertaining and informative. Any
profits from the sale of this book will go to the Hathersage
Association and will, in turn, be donated to the local charities
which the Association supports. Those charities include Edale
Mountain Rescue, the Air Ambulance, Helen's Trust, Bakewell &
Eyam Community Transport, and Cardiac Risk in the Young.
Local prosecution associations were a method of controlling crime
which was devised in the second half of the eighteenth century,
fifty years before the introduction of police forces. They were a
national phenomenon, and it is estimated that by the end of the
1700s around 4000 of them existed in England, but this book tells
the story of one particular society: the Hathersage Association for
the Prosecution of Felons and Other Offenders. Hathersage is a Peak
District village which recently came top in a Country Living poll
to determine the '20 best hidden gems in the UK'. The tourists who
now visit the village in their thousands each year come as walkers,
climbers, and cyclists. Its grimy history of wire and needle
manufacturing is almost forgotten. In addition to telling the story
of its ancient prosecution organisation, this book seeks to
illuminate some of the less conspicuous aspects of Hathersage's
social history by shining a light from the unusual direction of
minor crime and antisocial behaviour. It also describes the lives
of some of the residents of the village: minor gentry;
industrialists; clergy; and farmers, in addition to the mill
workers and labourers. With access to hand-written records going
back to 1784 which had never been studied before, the author has
drawn on contemporary newspaper articles and census returns to
assemble a montage which depicts the life of the village,
particularly during the 19th century. Many of these original
records have been reproduced in order to offer reader an
opportunity to interpret the old documents themselves. While
striving for historical accuracy throughout, the author has
produced a book which is both entertaining and informative. Any
profits from the sale of this book will go to the Hathersage
Association and will, in turn, be donated to the local charities
which the Association supports. Those charities include Edale
Mountain Rescue, the Air Ambulance, Helen's Trust, Bakewell &
Eyam Community Transport, and Cardiac Risk in the Young.
In the early 1990's Kristiane Backer was one of the very first
presenters of MTV Europe. For some years she lived and breathed the
international music scene, quickly gaining a cult following amongst
viewers and becoming a darling of European press. As she reached
the pinnacle of her success she realised that, despite having all
she could have wished for, she was never truly satisfied. Something
very important was missing. A fateful meeting with Pakistani
cricket hero Imran Khan changed her life. He invited her to his
country where she encountered a completely different world from the
one she knew, the religion and culture of Islam. Instead of pop and
rock stars she was meeting men and women whose lives were dominated
by the love of God and who cared very little for the brief glories
of this world. She began to read the Quaran and to study books
about the Faith. A few years later, after travelling more widely in
the Islamic world and knowing that she had discovered her spiritual
path, she embraced Islam in a London mosque. And then her real
adventures began.In this very personal memoir Kristiane Backer
tells the story of her conversion and explains how faith, despite
the many challenges she faced, has given her inner peace and the
meaning she sought.
The extraordinary story of how the Endurance, Sir Ernest
Shackleton's ship, was found in the most hostile sea on Earth in
2022 On 21 November 1915, Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, Endurance,
finally succumbed to the crushing ice. Its crew watched in silence
as the stern rose twenty feet in the air and then, it was gone. The
miraculous escape and survival of all 28 men on board have entered
legend. And yet, the iconic ship that bore them to the brink of the
Antarctic was considered forever lost. A century later, an
audacious plan to locate the ship was hatched. The Ship Beneath the
Ice gives a blow-by-blow account of the two epic expeditions to
find the Endurance. As with Shackleton's own story, the voyages
were filled with intense drama and teamwork under pressure. In
March 2022, the Endurance was finally found to headlines all over
the world. Written by Mensun Bound, the Director of Exploration on
both expeditions, this captivating narrative includes countless
fascinating stories of Shackleton and his legendary ship. Complete
with a selection of Frank Hurley's photos from Shackleton's
original voyage in 1914-17, as well as from the expeditions in 2019
and 2022, The Ship Beneath the Ice is the perfect tribute to this
monumental discovery.
From the forests of Inverness-shire to fashionable Park Lane,
London, this is the fascinating story of a small group of
individuals, whose lives intertwined across the social classes to
develop one of today's most beloved breeds of dog - the Golden
Retriever.Spanning more than seventy years, From Yellow to Golden
is a social and family history of seven people whose contributions
were pivotal in the development of the breed. It was their devotion
that helped make the Golden Retriever so successful as a working
dog and in the show ring. They have left a lasting legacy. It is a
legacy that is enjoyed by tens of thousands of owners around the
world today.Supporting Medical Detection Dogs
From the forests of Inverness-shire to fashionable Park Lane,
London, this is the fascinating story of a small group of
individuals, whose lives intertwined across the social classes to
develop one of today's most beloved breeds of dog - the Golden
Retriever.Spanning more than seventy years, From Yellow to Golden
is a social and family history of seven people whose contributions
were pivotal in the development of the breed. It was their devotion
that helped make the Golden Retriever so successful as a working
dog and in the show ring. They have left a lasting legacy. It is a
legacy that is enjoyed by tens of thousands of owners around the
world today.Supporting Medical Detection Dogs
This is the story of one man's dream, a vision. It is the story of
an enterprise unparalleled in the history of The Church of
Scotland. It is the story of commitment in the face of danger and
dogged persistence in facing up to immense obstacles in Scotland
and the shifting political scene in Palestine and Israel. It is the
story of a depth of faith which leaves you questioning your own.
The author was employed as a member of staff of The Church of
Scotland firstly in Malawi and then in Israel from 1986 to 1993. He
was later appointed the Church's Middle East Secretary and retired
in 2010. The sacrifice of The Great War was marked by many
memorials across the world. There is none more unique or poignant
than the Scots Memorial Church of St Andrew's in Jerusalem. The
Society of Friends of St Andrew's, Jerusalem, supports The Church
of Scotland in its work of maintaining this vital resource and its
ministry in this most Holy Land. Many of the Friends have military
connections and all wish to ensure that the commitment and
achievements of Scottish soldiers in the Middle East campaigns
continue to be recognised and remembered. This wonderful book
records the background to the vision for a Scots Memorial in
Jerusalem, its creation and challenges. By purchasing a copy you
are helping the Friends and The Church of Scotland to develop and
adapt the original vision and continue their work and influence in
the region. Major General Mark Strudwick, C.B.E. - President of the
Society of the Friends of St Andrew's, Jerusalem.
An extraordinary account of one woman's single-minded campaign to
restore a Victorian steamship to her former glory and make her an
Andean attraction Here is a vivid account of Meriel Larken's
incredible quest to restore the "Yavari" steamship against the
odds--a ship that is now celebrating its 150 year anniversary in
2012. In 1862 the English-built "Yavari" was taken to bits and
shipped to South America. In an epic logistical feat it was carried
in thousands of pieces, by mule, up the Andes to Lake Titicaca,
12,500 feet above sea level, the world's highest navigable
waterway. She was reconstructed and for more than a century plied
her trade up and down the lake, but by 1985 she was a sad rotting
hulk--until she was found by Larken, who led the quest to project
to restore and preserve the ship. The oldest single screw iron
passenger ship in the world, this nautical and engineering jewel is
now a major Peruvian tourist attraction.
Who were the pioneers in science education, and what motivated them
to do what they did?" This book is the second volume of an attempt
to capture and record some of the answers to these questions-either
from the pioneers themselves or from those persons who worked most
closely with them. As with the first volume, we have attempted to
include as many pioneers as possible, but we know that there are
still many that are not included in this or the previous volume. As
we have posed questions, rummaged through files and oft?neglected
books, and probed the memories of many individuals, we have come to
realize our list of true pioneers is ever growing. As we consider
our list of pioneers, we know that there are names on the list that
most of us readily recognize. We also fully realize that there are
names of whom few of us have heard-yet who were significant in
their roles as mentors or idea development and teaching. We
continue to be impressed with our science education "family tree"
ever branching out to more individuals and connections. The stories
in this volume continue to demonstrate how vital this network was
in supporting the individual pioneers during their journey in
difficult times and continues to be for those of us today in our
own enterprise.
Everyone knows the name Calamity Jane. Scores of dime novels and
movie and TV Westerns have portrayed this original Wild West woman
as an adventuresome, gun-toting hellion. Although Calamity Jane has
probably been written about more than any other woman of the
nineteenth-century American West, fiction and legend have largely
obscured the facts of her life. This lively, concise, and
exhaustively researched biography traces the real person from the
Missouri farm where she was born in 1856 through the development of
her notorious persona as a Wild West heroine.
Before Calamity Jane became a legend, she was Martha Canary,
orphaned when she was only eleven years old. From a young age she
traveled fearlessly, worked with men, smoked, chewed tobacco, and
drank. By the time she arrived in the boomtown of Deadwood, South
Dakota, in 1876, she had become Calamity Jane, and the real Martha
Canary had disappeared under a landslide of purple prose.
Calamity became a hostess and dancer in Deadwood's saloons and
theaters. She imbibed heavily, and she might have been a
prostitute, but she had other qualities, as well, including those
of an angel of mercy who ministered to the sick and the
down-and-out. Journalists and dime novelists couldn't get enough of
either version, nor, in the following century, could filmmakers.
Sorting through the stories, veteran western historian Richard W.
Etulain's account begins with a biography that offers new
information on Calamity's several "husbands" (including one she
legally married), her two children, and a woman who claimed to be
the daughter of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity, a story Etulain
discredits. In the second half of the book, Etulain traces the
stories that have shaped Calamity Jane's reputation. Some Calamity
portraits, he says, suggest that she aspired to a quiet life with a
husband and family. As the 2004-2006 HBO series "Deadwood" makes
clear, well more than a century after her first appearance as a
heroine in the Deadwood Dick dime novels, Calamity Jane lives
on--raunchy, unabashed, contradictory, and ambiguous as ever.""
At the end of the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of German
children were sent to the front lines in the largest mobilisation
of underage combatants by any country before or since. Hans Dunker
was just one of these children. Identified as gifted aged 9, he
left his home in South America in 1937 in pursuit of a 'proper'
education in Nazi Germany. Instead, he and his schoolfriends,
lacking adequate training, ammunition and rations, were sent to the
Eastern Front when the war was already lost in the spring of 1945.
Using her father's diary and other documents, Helene Munson traces
Hans' journey from a student at Feldafing School to a soldier
fighting in Zawada, a village in present-day Czech Republic. What
is revealed is an education system so inhumane that until recently,
post-war Germany worked hard to keep it a secret. This is Hans'
story, but also the story of a whole generation of German children
who silently carried the shame of what they suffered into old age.
An "intriguing and accessible" (Publishers Weekly) interpretation
of the life of Galileo Galilei, one of history's greatest and most
fascinating scientists, that sheds new light on his discoveries and
how he was challenged by science deniers. "We really need this
story now, because we're living through the next chapter of science
denial" (Bill McKibben). Galileo's story may be more relevant today
than ever before. At present, we face enormous crises-such as
minimizing the dangers of climate change-because the science behind
these threats is erroneously questioned or ignored. Galileo
encountered this problem 400 years ago. His discoveries, based on
careful observations and ingenious experiments, contradicted
conventional wisdom and the teachings of the church at the time.
Consequently, in a blatant assault on freedom of thought, his books
were forbidden by church authorities. Astrophysicist and
bestselling author Mario Livio draws on his own scientific
expertise and uses his "gifts as a great storyteller" (The
Washington Post) to provide a "refreshing perspective" (Booklist)
into how Galileo reached his bold new conclusions about the cosmos
and the laws of nature. A freethinker who followed the evidence
wherever it led him, Galileo was one of the most significant
figures behind the scientific revolution. He believed that every
educated person should know science as well as literature, and
insisted on reaching the widest audience possible, publishing his
books in Italian rather than Latin. Galileo was put on trial with
his life in the balance for refusing to renounce his scientific
convictions. He remains a hero and inspiration to scientists and
all of those who respect science-which, as Livio reminds us in this
"admirably clear and concise" (The Times, London) book, remains
threatened everyday.
THE CRIMES. THE STORIES. THE LAW 'Fascinating' - Sunday Times
'Masterful' - Judith Flanders 'A page-turning read' - Prof. David
Wilson Totally gripping and brilliantly told, Murder: The Biography
is a gruesome and utterly captivating portrait of the legal history
of murder. The stories and the people involved in the history of
murder are stranger, darker and more compulsive than any crime
fiction. There's Richard Parker, the cannibalized cabin boy whose
death at the hands of his hungry crewmates led the Victorian courts
to decisively outlaw a defence of necessity to murder. Dr Percy
Bateman, the incompetent GP whose violent disregard for his patient
changed the law on manslaughter. Ruth Ellis, the last woman hanged
in England in the 1950s, played a crucial role in changes to the
law around provocation in murder cases. And Archibald Kinloch, the
deranged Scottish aristocrat whose fratricidal frenzy paved the way
for the defence of diminished responsibility. These, and many more,
are the people - victims, killers, lawyers and judges, who
unwittingly shaped the history of that most grisly and storied of
laws. Join lawyer and writer Kate Morgan on a dark and macabre
journey as she explores the strange stories and mysterious cases
that have contributed to UK murder law. The big corporate killers;
the vengeful spouses; the sloppy doctors; the abused partners; the
shoddy employers; each story a crime and each crime a precedent
that has contributed to the law's dark, murky and, at times,
shocking standing.
In August of 1838, in the middle of a devastating civil war, a
grotesque figure arrived with the mail coach at Santiago de
Compostela, the ancient pilgrimage town in the North-West of Spain.
He was a former Swiss mercenary, who thirty years previously had
heard a rumour about a massive hoard of church plate buried by the
soldiers of Marshal Ney. A fantasy? A daydream? Just one of the
many hollow legends of hidden gold that abound in Spain? Perhaps
so. But, astonishingly, the Swiss vagrant did not come on his own
errand. He came sponsored by Spain's savvy Minister of Finance, Don
Alejandro Mon, who for some shadowy reason of his own lent credence
to the tale. Like an historical Sherlock Holmes, Peter Missler
traces the true tale of Benedict Mol, the treasure hunter, through
the mists of time and a smoke-screen of cover-stories. It is a
fascinating saga which takes us into Portugal with the looting
French invaders, into the wildest mountains of Northern Spain with
the brilliant polyglot George Borrow, and - by the hand of Mol -
into the darkest nooks and corners of a hospital for syphilitics.
No treasure was ever found, either in the first attempt, which
toppled the government, or in the second one, which ended with the
murder of two innocent peasants. Therefore, quite possibly, Ney's
treasure still lies waiting elsewhere in a Santiago park...
Meet Renee and Herta, two sisters who faced the unimaginable -
together. This is their true story. RENEE: I was ten years old
then, and my sister was eight. The responsibility was on me to warn
everyone when the soldiers were coming because my sister and both
my parents were deaf. I was my family's ears. As Jews living in
1940s Czechoslovakia, Renee, Herta and their parents were in
immediate danger when the Holocaust came to their door. As the only
hearing person in her family, Renee had to alert her parents and
sister whenever the sound of Nazi boots approached their home so
they could hide. But soon their parents were tragically taken away,
and the two sisters went on the run, desperate to find a safe place
to hide. Eventually they, too, would be captured and taken to the
concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Communicating in sign language
and relying on each other for strength in the midst of illness,
death and starvation, Renee and Herta would have to fight to
survive the darkest of times. This gripping memoir, told in a vivid
'oral history' format, is a testament to the power of sisterhood
and love, and now more than ever a reminder of how important it is
to honour the past, and keep telling our own stories. A memoir of
the Holocaust Perfect for those who want to learn more about the
experiences of people during this period of time in history Written
with Joshua M. Greene, a renowned Holocaust scholar.
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