Have you ever wanted accessible introductions to key figures and periods of Christian history? Augustine and His World Augustine is one of the giants of the Christian church. From his birth in North Africa and his days as a relatively permissive young man, through his midlife conversion to Christianity and career as bishop of Hippo, his story has intrigued and inspired every generation for over 1,600 years. As a thinker, teacher, writer and debater, Augustine's greatness lay in his ability to relate the philosophies of Ancient Greece and Rome to the precepts of the Christian faith. Augustine also saved the church itself from disintegrating into rival factions by forging sound doctrine in the fires of controversy. This immersive account of Augustine's life helps readers understand the world he came from and the enormous contribution he made to the church, both of his day and of the future. Francis of Assisi and His World Francis of Assisi is one of the world's most popular religious figures, and also one of the most misrepresented. In this lively and engaging account of Francis's story - from his hedonistic youth to his emergence as a Christian leader of great charisma and intensity - Mark Galli attempts to strip away the modern gloss in order to discover the real man and the world in which he lived. The saint revealed here is not the romantic free spirit of popular imagination, but a contentious figure who combined a deep mysticism with radical commitment and, above all, sought to glorify God, the creator.

The French Enlightenment takes place against a background of State censorship. During the last decade or so of the Ancien regime, the French government fluctuated considerably regarding its approach to banned books: on the one hand, many were not overtly prohibited but were nonetheless seized; on the other, banned books were often allowed through. The inconsistencies of officials provide revealing insights into the innermost workings of the system on the eve of the Revolution and show the scope of changing mentalities during those crucial years. Beyond the customs records, numerous sources have been exploited in order to clarify these inconsistencies of practice, even as the author analyses archival records relevant to the French booktrade and to works considered dangerous. Confiscations at customs focuses on specific issues concerning banned books and their importation into Paris, including works by Voltaire, Fleuriot de Langle and Raynal, as well as discussing piracies and works published or imported by virtue of the tacit permit. Numerous titles can now be added to the recently published lists of books seized at customs based on a close reading of hitherto unpublished archival sources. Substantial appendices complete the discussion; they range from lists of banned books to unpublished letters concerning Voltaire's OEuvres. Several other appendices are freely available online at http://uts.cc.texas.edu/~dawson/index.html.

Empress Marie (1847-1928) lived one of the most dramatic lives of any princess who sat on the Russian throne. Born Princess Dagmar of Denmark she was betrothed to Tsarevitch Nicholas of Russia, a love match on both sides, but he died months before the wedding. Out of duty she married his brother who came to the throne as Tsar Alexander III in 1881 on the assassination of his father Alxander II. Her son was Nicholas II, the last Tsar. Everything she held most dear was destroyed before her eyes. Her husband died in his prime and two of her sons died young. During the First World War, her advice unheeded, the Tsar took command of the army and she could only watch as the country she loved was governed by her daughter-in-law Empress Alexandra and Rasputin, with disastrous results. Russia was engulfed in revolution, leading to the destruction of the dynasty and the Church. After a period of house arrest under the Bolsheviks, she escaped and was brought to England on board a British warship. Her word was law among the emigres and her influence was paramount among the Romanovs. She had truly become Matoushka - the Mother of the Russian People. She died in Denmark in 1928. This is the first major work in English, using previously unpublished material from the Royal Archives and information in Russian, Danish and Finnish not previously available in English.

Exam board: Pearson Edexcel; OCR Level: AS/A-level Subject: History First teaching: September 2015 First exams: Summer 2016 (AS); Summer 2017 (A-level) Put your trust in the textbook series that has given thousands of A-level History students deeper knowledge and better grades for over 30 years. Updated to meet the demands of today's A-level specifications, this new generation of Access to History titles includes accurate exam guidance based on examiners' reports, free online activity worksheets and contextual information that underpins students' understanding of the period. - Develop strong historical knowledge: In-depth analysis of each topic is both authoritative and accessible - Build historical skills and understanding: Downloadable activity worksheets can be used independently by students or edited by teachers for classwork and homework - Learn, remember and connect important events and people: An introduction to the period, summary diagrams, timelines and links to additional online resources support lessons, revision and coursework - Achieve exam success: Practical advice matched to the requirements of your A-level specification incorporates the lessons learnt from previous exams - Engage with sources, interpretations and the latest historical research: Students will evaluate a rich collection of visual and written materials, plus key debates that examine the views of different historians

'He had the dream again last night... He taps the gloves of his unbeaten Polish opponent. There are rumours that the loser will be sent to the gas chamber.' In 1943, the Dutch champion boxer, Leen Sanders, was sent to Auschwitz. His wife and children were put to death while he was sent 'to the left' with the others who were fit enough for labour. Recognised by an SS officer, he was earmarked for a 'privileged' post in the kitchens in exchange for weekly boxing matches for the entertainment of the Nazi guards. From there, he enacted his resistance to their limitless cruelty. With great risk and danger to his own life, Leen stole, concealed and smuggled food and clothing from SS nursing units for years to alleviate the unbearable suffering of the prisoners in need. He also regularly supplied extra food to the Dutch women in Dr. Mengele's experiment, Block 10. To his fellow Jews in the camp, he acted as a rescuer, leader and role model, defending them even on their bitter death march to Dachau towards the end of the war. A story of astonishing resilience and compassion, The Fighter of Auschwitz is a testament to the endurance of humanity in the face of extraordinary evil.

The Sunday Times number one bestseller

The Strange Death of Europe is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide. Declining birth-rates, mass immigration and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive change as a society. This book is not only an analysis of demographic and political realities, but also an eyewitness account of a continent in self-destruct mode. It includes reporting from across the entire continent, from the places where migrants land to the places they end up, from the people who appear to welcome them in to the places which cannot accept them.

Told from this first-hand perspective, and backed with impressive research and evidence, the book addresses the disappointing failure of multiculturalism, Angela Merkel's U-turn on migration, the lack of repatriation and the Western fixation on guilt. Murray travels to Berlin, Paris, Scandinavia, Lampedusa and Greece to uncover the malaise at the very heart of the European culture, and to hear the stories of those who have arrived in Europe from far away. In each chapter he also takes a step back to look at the bigger issues which lie behind a continent's death-wish, answering the question of why anyone, let alone an entire civilisation, would do this to themselves? He ends with two visions of Europe – one hopeful, one pessimistic – which paint a picture of Europe in crisis and offer a choice as to what, if anything, we can do next.

What does it now mean to call yourself European? Who makes up this population of 750 million, sprawled from Ireland to Ukraine, from Sweden to Turkey? Who has always called it home, and who has newly arrived from elsewhere? Who are the people who drive our long-distance lorries, steward our criss-crossing planes, lovingly craft our legacy wines, fish our depleted waters, and risk life itself in search of safety and a new start?

In a series of vivid, ambitious, darkly visceral but always empathetic portraits of other people’s lives, Ben Judah invites us to meet them. Drawn from hours of painstaking interviews, these vital stories reveal a frenetic and vibrant continent which has been transformed by diversity, migration, the internet, climate change, Covid, war and the quest for freedom.

Laid dramatically bare, it may not always be a Europe we recognize – but this is Europe.

Gathers photographers of children, shop windows, street vendors, bicyclists, artists, circus performers, political protestors, cafes, and animals.

With the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War looming, this new edition of the Wartime Scrapbook revives memories of this evocative time in Britain's history. Life on the home front revolved around rationing, blackouts, and air raid precautions, bringing out that British spirit - humour coupled with making-do and determination. Poster propaganda kept the population digging for victory during the years of the Home Guard, Women's Land Army and austerity with dried eggs. Drawn from Robert Opie's unrivalled collection, this new edition of The Wartime Scrapbook profusely illustrates a unique period in history - the song sheets, magazine covers, comic postcards, fashion and food, games, propaganda posters and a wealth of wartime ephemera whose very survival is remarkable.

This four-volume set of handbooks offers comprehensive survey of the history of a region that went from domination by various Empires before the First World War to membership of the EU in the late twentieth century. Challenges of Modernity offers a broad account of the social and economic history of Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century and asks critical questions about the structure and experience of modernity in different contexts and periods. Statehood examines the extending lines of development of nation-state systems in Eastern Europe, in particular considering why certain tendencies in state development found a different expression in this region compared to other parts of the continent. Intellectual Horizons offers a pioneering, transnational and comparative treatment of key thematic areas in the intellectual and cultural history of Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century. Violence analyses both the violence exerted on the societies of Central and Eastern Europe during the twentieth century by belligerent powers and authoritarian and/or totalitarian regimes and armed conflicts between ethnic, social and national groups, as well as the interaction between these two phenomena. Transnational and comparative in approach, key lines of development are synthesised leading to a complex understanding of the region. Written by a range of international contributors, many from the region itself, this is the go-to resource on Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe in the twentieth century.

One we've learned it as children few of us think much of the alphabet and its familiar sing-song order. And yet the order if the alphabet, that simple knowledge that we take for granted, plays a major role in our adult lives. From the school register to the telephone book, from dictionaries and encyclopaedias to library shelves, our lives are ordered from A to Z. Long before Google searches, this magical system of organization gave us the ability to sift through centuries of thought, knowledge and literature, allowing us to sort, to file, and to find the information we have, and to locate the information we need.

In A Place for Everything, acclaimed historian Judith Flanders draws our attention to both the neglected ubiquity of the alphabet and the long, complex history of its rise to prominence. For, while the order of the alphabet itself became fixed very soon after letters were first invented, their ability to sort and store and organize proved far less obvious. To many of our forebears, the idea of of organizing things by the random chance of the alphabet rather than by established systems of hierarchy or typology lay somewhere between unthinkable and disrespectful.

A Place for Everything fascinatingly lays out the gradual triumph of alphabetical order, from its possible earliest days as a sorting tool in the Great Library of Alexandria in the third century BCE, to its current decline in prominence in our digital age of Wikipedia and Google. Along the way, the reader is enlightened and entertained with a wonderful cast of unknown facts, characters and stories from the great collector Robert Cotton, who denominated his manuscripts with the names of the busts of the Roman emperors surmounting his book cases, to the unassuming sixteenth- century London bookseller who ushered in a revolution by listing his authors by 'sirname' first.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

**Selected as a Book of the Year by the Spectator and the Daily Telegraph** 'Fascinating ... carefully researched and beautifully written' DAVID DIMBLEBY 'Utterly riveting' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Robert-Sackville West writes tenderly about death and remembrance' GERARD DEGROOT, THE TIMES ______________________ By the end of the First World War, the whereabouts of more than half a million British soldiers were unknown. Most were presumed dead, lost forever under the battlefields of northern France and Flanders. In The Searchers, Robert Sackville-West brings together the extraordinary, moving accounts of those who dedicated their lives to the search for the missing. These stories reveal the remarkable lengths to which people will go to give meaning to their loss: Rudyard Kipling's quest for his son's grave; E.M. Forster's conversations with traumatised soldiers in hospital in Alexandria; desperate attempts to communicate with the spirits of the dead; the campaign to establish the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior; and the exhumation and reburial in military cemeteries of hundreds of thousands of bodies. It was a search that would span a century: from the department set up to investigate the fate of missing comrades in the war's aftermath, to the present day, when DNA profiling continues to aid efforts to recover, identify and honour these men. As the rest of the country found ways to repair and move on, countless families were consumed by this mission, undertaking arduous, often hopeless, journeys to discover what happened to their husbands, brothers and sons. Giving prominence to the deep, personal battles of those left behind, The Searchers brings the legacy of war vividly to life in a testament to the bravery, compassion and resilience of the human spirit. 'Remarkable' JOHN CAREY, SUNDAY TIMES 'This is an outstanding book' LITERARY REVIEW 'Deeply moving' DAILY MAIL

This volume highlights new research on Jewish spiritual and religious life in Poland before modern political ideas began to transform the Jewish world. It covers a range of topics. Three articles deal with rabbinic scholarship in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and a fourth presents accounts of Purim festivities at that time. The eighteenth-century studies focus on Jewish spirituality. Four articles deal with the Frankist movement, the main topics being Frankist propaganda; non-Christian Frankists; Jonathan Eibeschuetz and the Frankists; and the influence of Frankism on Polish culture. There are four articles on hasidism-on the tsadik and the ba'al shem; the childhood of tsadikim in hasidic legends; the fall of the Seer of Lublin; and the hasidism of Gur-and one about Nahman Krochmal. Of the contributors to the core section on Jewish spiritual and religious life, four are Polish. Three contributors are working in Germany, where Jewish studies is likewise re-establishing itself. Other contributors are scholars from Canada, Israel, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Some are themselves religious, others are secular; taken together, their contributions further the study of Jewish religious traditions in Poland, a topic central to an understanding of Jewish society and history in Poland but one which has long been considered marginal by the academic world. As in earlier volumes of Polin, substantial space is given to new research in other areas of Polish-Jewish studies. There is an extensive survey of the papal Holocaust papers, as well as contributions relating to education for girls, to Auschwitz as a site of memories, and to aspects of Jewish literature, politics, society, and economics. A young Polish scholar from Jedwabne has contributed a moving article on local reactions to news of the massacre of the Jews of that town. The review section include two separate essays with contrasting opinions on Yaffa Eliach's monumental study of Eishyshok.

The definitive survey of the countries and territories of Western Europe, comprising expert analysis and commentary, up-to-date economic and socio-political data and extensive directory information. General Survey Essays by leading experts on the area cover issues of regional importance. Country Surveys Individual chapters on each country, comprising: an introductory survey, containing essays on the geography, history and economy of each country, including a chronology and map. an extensive statistical survey of economic and demographic indicators, including area and population, health and welfare, agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, industry, finance, trade, transport, tourism, communications media and education. a comprehensive directory of names and contact details covering the most significant political and commercial institutions. Regional Information a directory of research institutes specializing in the region bibliographies of books and periodicals covering the region.

Scholarship on the civilization of Polish Jews has tended to focus on elite culture and canonical literature; even modern Yiddish culture has generally been approached from the perspective of 'great works'. This volume of Polin focuses on the less explored but historically vital theme of Jewish popular culture and shows how, confronted by the challenges and opportunities of modernity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it blossomed into a complex expression of Jewish life. In addition to a range of articles on the period before the Second World War there are studies of the traces of this culture in the contemporary world. The volume as a whole aims to develop a fresh understanding of Polish Jewish civilization in all its richness and variety. Subjects discussed in depth include klezmorim and Jewish recorded music; the development of Jewish theatre in Poland, theatrical parody, and the popular poet and performer Mordechai Gebirtig; Jewish postcards in Poland and Germany; the early Yiddish popular press in Galicia and cartoons in the Yiddish press; working-class libraries in inter-war Poland; the impact of the photographs of Roman Vishniac; contemporary Polish wooden figures of Jews; and the Krakow Jewish culture festival. In addition, a Polish Jewish popular song is traced to Sachsenhausen, the badkhn (wedding jester) is rediscovered in present-day Jerusalem, and Yiddish cabaret turns up in blues, rock 'n' roll, and reggae garb. There are also translations from the work of two writers previously unavailable in English: excerpts from the ethnographer A. Litvin's pioneering five-volume work Yidishe neshomes (Jewish Souls) and several chapters from the autobiography, notorious in inter-war Poland, of the writer and thief Urke Nachalnik. As in earlier volumes of Polin substantial space is also given to new research into a variety of topics in Polish Jewish studies. These include the origins of antisemitism in Poland; what is known about the presence of German forces in the vicinity of Jedwabne in the summer of 1941; and the vexed question of Jews in the communist security apparatus in Poland after 1944. The review section includes an important discussion of what should be done about the paintings in Sandomierz cathedral which represent an alleged ritual murder in the seventeenth century, and an examination of the 'anti-Zionist' campaign of 1968.

Most people are familiar with the use of horses and their often-heroic actions in the First World War, but what about camels, monkeys and the mighty elephant? In this wonderfully illustrated title, learn about how animals were trained and used, the role pets had to play in the war, and the plight of animals on the farm, down the mine and in the street. Although animals were used heavily on the front line and in major battles such as the Somme, they also had a role to play at home and, indeed, in almost every aspect of wartime life. From their first use to how animals were treated when the war ended, and including the involvement of the RSPCA and Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, this volume contains stories that will shock, delight and move you.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, created in 1569, covered a wide spectrum of faiths and languages. The nobility, who were the main focus of Polishness, were predominantly Catholic, particularly from the later seventeenth century; the peasantry included Catholics, Protestants, and members of the Orthodox faith, while nearly half the urban population, and some 10 per cent of the total population, was Jewish. The partition of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and the subsequent struggle to regain Polish independence raised the question of what the boundaries of a future state should be, and who qualified as a Pole. The partitioning powers, for their part, were determined to hold on to the areas they had annexed: Prussia tried to strengthen the German element in Poland; the Habsburgs encouraged the development of a Ukrainian consciousness in Austrian Galicia to act as a counterweight to the dominant Polish nobility; and Russia, while allowing the Kingdom of Poland to enjoy substantial autonomy, treated the remaining areas it had annexed as part of the tsarist monarchy. When Poland became independent after the First World War more than a third of its population were thus Ukrainians, Belarusians, Germans, Jews, and Lithuanians, many of whom had been influenced by nationalist movements. The core articles in the volume focus especially on the triangular relationship between Poles, Jews, and Germans in western Poland, and between the different national groups in what are today Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. In addition, the New Views section investigates aspects of Jewish life in pre-partition Poland and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are also the regular Review Essay and Book Review sections.

'Bellicose Dove' is the first English biography of the Huguenot lawyer, preacher, diplomat and martyr Claude Brousson for 150 years. It examines his life (1647-98), letters, sermons, books, and the role he played in resisting Louis XIV's persecution of the Huguenots until his death on the scaffold in 1698. Unique features of the book include a detailed examination of biographical details in his letters, analysis of the symbolism in his sermons and books (especially his anti-Catholic rhetoric), the importance of his three missionary journeys into France, and the effectiveness of his international diplomatic efforts in England, Holland, and Prussia.

This narrative history tells the story of the German occupation of Normandy (1940-44), and the Allied liberation. Following the fall of France in 1940, Normandy formed part of the Reich's western border and its history for the next four years. On the coast, vast defenses were built up, and large numbers of German troops were stationed throughout the region, all in the midst of the local population. Much of the story is told in the words of French, German, and Allied participants, including last letters of executed hostages and resisters, accounts of everyday life and eyewitness reports of aerial, naval, and ground combat operations during the Liberation. When the Allies landed in Normandy in June 1944, all were witness to the greatest amphibious landing in history. This, then, is the story of the 51-month-nightmare that was Normandy's war, told while it is still possible to record the personal stories of survivors, which very soon will not be the case.

The assessment of the Nazi genocide in Poland, an issue which has deeply divided Poles and Jews, lies at the core of this volume. Also included are discussions of Polish attitudes to the nearly 300,000 Jews who tried to resettle in post-war Poland; the little-known testimony of Belzec survivor Rudolf Reder; a discussion of Holocaust victims as martyrs; and a presentation of how the Auschwitz Museum sees its future.

This fascinating millitary history tells the intriguing tale of the bitter and attritional Winter War between the USSR and Finland in the midst of World War II. On 30 November 1939, Soviet bombers unloaded their bombs on Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Stalin's ultimatum, demanding the cession of huge tracts of territory as a buffer zone against Nazi Germany, had been rejected by the Finnish government, and now a small Baltic republic was at war with the giant Soviet military machine. But this forgotten war, fought under brutal, sub-arctic conditions, often with great heroism on both sides, proved one of the most astonishing in military history. Using guerrilla fighters on skis, even reindeer to haul supplies on sleds, heroic single-handed attacks on tanks, and with unfathomable endurance and the charismatic leadership of one of the 20th century's true military geniuses, Finland not only kept at bay but won an epic, if short-lived, victory over the hapless Russian conscripts. Its surreal engagements included the legendary "Sausage Battle", when starving Soviet troops who had over-run a Finnish encampment couldn't resist the cauldrons of hot sausage soup left behind by their opponents - and were ambushed as they stopped to sup. Although by sheer attritional weight of numbers Stalin eventually prevailed over the Finns, their pointed resistance enabled their country to remain free, even as other countries fell one by one. This book gives a telling insight into the military history of Russia, as once again Russian troops march on foreign soil, and a nation at Russia's borders fights to retain its independence.