|
Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Genealogy, heraldry, names and honours
Winner of the 1991 QSPELL Prize for Non-fiction One of Canada's
founding peoples, the Irish arrived in the Newfoundland fishing
stations as early as the seventeenth century. By the eighteenth
century they were establishing farms and settlements from Nova
Scotia to the Great Lakes. Then, in the 1840s, came the failures of
Ireland's potato crop, which people in the west of Ireland had
depended on for survival. "And that," wrote a Sligo countryman,
"was the beginning of the great trouble and famine that destroyed
Ireland." Flight from Famine is the moving account of a
Victorian-era tragedy that has echoes in our own time but seems
hardly credible in the light of Ireland's modern prosperity. The
famine survivors who helped build Canada in the years that followed
Black '47 provide a testament to courage, resilience, and
perseverance. By the time of Confederation, the Irish population of
Canada was second only to the French, and four million Canadians
can claim proud Irish descent.
For thousands of years bloodlines have been held as virtually
unassailable credentials for leadership, with supreme political
power perceived as a family affair across the globe and throughout
history. At the heart of royal dynasties, kings were inflated to
superhuman proportions, yet their status came at a price: whilst
they may have reigned, they were very often ruled by others who
sheltered behind the ruler's proclaimed omnipotence. Descent
through the female line also occurred, subverting our common view
of dynasty as built on father-son succession. Everywhere, women
were important as mothers of boy-kings, and could even rule in
their own right in some places. In this Very Short Introduction
Jeroen Duindam connects the earliest history of kings and queens to
contemporary examples of family-based leadership. His sweeping
overview of five millennia of dynastic rule brings to light
recurring predicaments of families on the throne. Examining
persistent family conflict and the dilemmas of leadership, he shows
how the challenge of governing the family was balanced by the
necessity of family scions, close or distant, for the survival of
dynasties. Tensions between ageing fathers and eager sons can be
found among ancient kings as well as in modern business empires.
Guidebooks for rulers throughout history provided counsel that will
appear strikingly familiar to contemporary leaders. The thoughts
and confessions of rulers added a more personal touch to these
rules of thumb. Throughout, Duindam sheds light not only on
similarities, but also on divergence and change in dynastic
practice. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series
from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost
every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to
get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine
facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make
interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Brenda Ralph Lewis presents an informative overview of how kings
and queens came about and of the many forces that have shaped the
identity of monarchy and in many cases caused its downfall.
The author is a journalist descendant of three generations of
eminent lawyers, who made the surname famous-perhaps especially Sir
Henry Curtis-Bennett, KC. She could get no further than the early
18th century so turned her attention to the distaff side with
rewarding results. "A wealth of illustrations, photographs and
family trees and a bibliography add interest to the lively and
entertaining text." Family Tree Magazine
Henry VIII had extravagant ideas of image and authority and loved his possessions. He owned over 2000 pieces of tapestry and 2028 items of gold and silver plate. This work is not only a catalogue, but also a source of information for the study of Tudor society. In its listings the inventory provides information about Henry's personal and declining health problems, for example his bandages for ulcers are listed.;The original inventory is in two parts: one in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries and the other in the Harley Collection of the British Library. Volume one is a transcription of the inventory itself. The second and third volumes include explanatory essays by experts together with illustrations. In addition, the authors provide evaluations of the objects in monetary and social terms.
As a child, all Aatish Taseer ever had of his father was his
photograph in a browning silver frame. Raised by his Sikh mother in
Delhi, his father, a Pakistani Muslim, remained a distant figure.
It was a fractured upbringing which left Aatish with many questions
about his own identity. Stranger to History is the story of the
journey Aatish made to try to understand what it means to be Muslim
in the twenty-first century. Starting from Istanbul, Islam's once
greatest city, he travels to Mecca, its most holy, and then home
through Iran and Pakistan. Ending in Lahore, at his estranged
father's home, on the night Benazir Bhutto was killed, it is also
the story of Aatish's own divided family over the past fifty years.
Seals and Society arises from a major project investigating seals
and their use in medieval Wales, the Welsh March and neighbouring
counties in England. The first major study of seals in the context
of one part of medieval Western European society, the volume also
offers a new perspective on the history of medieval Wales and its
periphery by addressing a variety of themes in terms of the insight
that seals can offer the historian. Though the present study
suggests important regional distinctions in the take-up of seals in
medieval Wales, it is also clear that seal usage increased from the
later twelfth century and spread widely in Welsh society,
especially in those parts of Wales neighbouring England or where
there had been an early English incursion. Through a series of
chapters, the authors examine the ways in which seals can shed
light on the legal, administrative, social and economic history of
the period in Wales and its border region. Seals provide unique
insights into the choices individuals, men and women, made in
representing themselves to the wider world, and this issue is
examined closely. Supported by almost 100 images gathered by the
project team, the volume is of great interest to those working on
seals, their motifs, their use and developments in their usage over
the high and later Middle Ages.
This monograph is based on a symposium held in the National
Gallery, London which showed how Richard II's beliefs may have been
expressed in the highly religious work, the Wilton Diptych, and how
he aspired to equal in magnificence the royal figures of Europe, in
particular Bohemia and France. Richard's love of material splendour
from the rebuilding of Westminster Hall to his lavish expenditure
on dress and gifts is argued in these essays. All the facets of the
regal image are underpinned by experts in the history, sociology
and artefacts of the period, who in their studies aim to bring out
the political difficulties under which Richard was operating.
Family history should reveal more than facts and dates, lists of
names and places - it should bring ancestors alive in the context
of their times and the surroundings they knew - and research into
local history records is one of the most rewarding ways of gaining
this kind of insight into their world. That is why Jonathan Oates's
detailed introduction to these records is such a useful tool for
anyone who is trying to piece together a portrait of family members
from the past. In a series of concise and informative chapters he
looks at the origins and importance of local history from the
sixteenth century onwards and at the principal archives - national
and local, those kept by government, councils, boroughs, museums,
parishes, schools and clubs. He also explains how books,
photographs and other illustrations, newspapers, maps, directories,
and a range of other resources can be accessed and interpreted and
how they can help to fill a gap in your knowledge.As well as
describing how these records were compiled, he highlights their
limitations and the possible pitfalls of using them, and he
suggests how they can be combined to build up a picture of an
individual, a family and the place and time in which they lived.
|
You may like...
The Flag
Georgia Beth
Paperback
R218
R176
Discovery Miles 1 760
|