Best known for the progressive school he founded in Dessau during the 18th century, Johann Bernhard Basedow was a central thinker in the German Enlightenment. Since his death in 1790 a substantial body of German-language literature about his life, work, and school (the Philanthropin) has developed. In the first English intellectual biography of this influential figure, Robert B. Louden answers questions that continue to surround Basedow and provides a much-needed examination of Basedow's intellectual legacy. Assessing the impact of his ideas and theories on subsequent educational movements, Louden argues that Basedow is the unacknowledged father of the progressive education movement. He unravels several paradoxes surrounding the Philanthropin to help understand why it was described by Immanuel Kant as "the greatest phenomenon which has appeared in this century for the perfection of humanity", despite its brief and stormy existence, its low enrollment and insufficient funding. Among the many neglected stories Louden tells is the enormous and unacknowledged debt that Kant owes to Basedow in his philosophy of education, history, and religion. This is a positive reassessment of Basedow and his difficult personality that leads to a reevaluation of the originality of major figures as well as a reconsideration of the significance of allegedly minor authors who have been eclipsed by the politics of historiography. For anyone looking to gain a deeper understanding of the history of German philosophy, Louden's book is essential reading.

A story of survival, of love between mother and son and of enduring hope in the face of unspeakable hardship. An important read. The Boy Who Didn't Want to Die describes an extraordinary journey, made by Peter, a boy of five, through war-torn Europe in 1944 and 1945. Peter and his parents set out from a small Hungarian town, travelling through Austria and then Germany together. Along the way, unforgettable images of adventure flash one after another: sleeping in a tent and then under the sky, discovering a disused brick factory, catching butterflies in the meadows - and as Peter realises that this adventure is really a nightmare - watching bombs falling from the blue sky outside Vienna, learning maths from his mother in Belsen. All this is drawn against a background of terror, starvation, infection and, inevitably, death, before Peter and his mother can return home. Professor Peter Lantos is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and in his previous life was an internationally renowned clinical neuroscientist. His memoir, Parallel Lines (Arcadia Books, 2006) was translated into Hungarian, German and Italian. Closed Horizon (Arcadia, 2012) was his first novel. Peter was awarded the British Empire Medal in 2020 for 'services to Holocaust education and awareness'. He is one of the last of the generation of survivors and this - his first book for children - will serve as a testimony to his experience. Peter lives in London.

This edited collection provides the first comprehensive history of Florence as the mid-19th century capital of the fledgling Italian nation. Covering various aspects of politics, economics, culture and society, this book examines the impact that the short-lived experience of becoming the political and administrative centre of the Kingdom of Italy had on the Tuscan city, both immediately and in the years that followed. It reflects upon the urbanising changes that affected the appearance of the city and the introduction of various economic and cultural innovations. The volume also analyses the crisis caused by the eventual relocation of the capital to Rome and the subsequent bankruptcy of the communality which hampered Florence on the long road to modernity. Florence: Capital of the Kingdom of Italy, 1865-71 is a fascinating study for all students and scholars of modern Italian history.

'Majestic, ambitious' Literary Review ____________________________________ We are endlessly fascinated by the French. We are fascinated by their way of life, their creativity and sophistication, and even their insistence that they are exceptional. But how did France become the country it is today, and what really sets it apart? Historian Peter Watson sets out to answer these questions in this dazzling history of France, taking us from the seventeenth century to the present day through the nation's most influential thinkers. He opens the doors to the Renaissance salons that brought together poets, philosophers and scientists, and tells the forgotten stories of the extraordinary women who ran these institutions, fostering a culture of stylish intellectualism unmatched anywhere else in the world. It's a story that takes us into Bohemian cafes and cabarets, into chic Parisian high culture via French philosophies of food, fashion and sex, and through two explosive revolutions. The French Mind is a history propelled by the writers, revolutionaries and painters who loved, inspired and rivalled one another over four hundred years. It documents the shaping of a nation whose global influence, in art, culture and politics, cannot be overstated. __________________________________________ 'An encyclopaedic celebration of French intellectuals refusing to give up on universal principles, while remaining slim, bringing up well-behaved children and falling in love at every opportunity' The Times 'An engaging movement through time towards France's recent reckonings with extremism, exceptionalism and empire' TLS

On January 30, 1889, at the champagne-splashed hight of the Viennese Carnival, the handsome and charming Crown Prince Rudolf fired a revolver at his teenaged mistress and then himself. The two shots that rang out at Mayerling in the Vienna Woods echo still.

Frederic Morton, author of the bestselling Rothschilds, deftly tells the haunting story of the Prince and his city, where, in the span of only ten months, "the Western dream started to go wrong." In Rudolf's Vienna moved other young men with striking intellectual and artistic talents--and all as frustrated as the Prince. Among them were: young Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Theodor Herzl, Gustav Klimt, and the playwright Arthur Schnitzler, whose La Ronde was the great erotic drama of the fin de siecle. Morton studies these and other gifted young men, interweaving their fates with that of the doomed Prince and the entire city through to the eve of Easter, just after Rudolf's body is lowered into its permanent sarcophagus and a son named Adolf Hitler is born to Frau Klara Hitler.

Incorporating a wide range of visual and translated written sources, The Modern Spain Sourcebook documents Spain's history from the Enlightenment to the present. The book is thematically arranged and includes six key primary sources on ten significant areas of Spanish history, including the arts, work, education, religion, politics, sexuality and empire. As well as the book's overarching introduction, there are theme-specific introductions and vital historical context sections provided for the sources that are presented. There are also useful suggested analytical questions and helpful web link lists included throughout. The Modern Spain Sourcebook covers political and economic history, but moves beyond this to provide a more complete picture of Spanish history through the sources selected with gender history, social history and cultural history coming to the fore. This is a crucial text containing a vital trove of primary material for all students of Spain and its history.