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Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Genealogy, heraldry, names and honours > General
Professor Woolrych surveys the establishment and history if the Commonwealth and Protectorate, first explaining how the country lost its king, and how Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector. Professor Woolrych challenges accepted views on the nature of the Protectorate, and finally offers some guidelines to the tangled period between Cromwell's death and the Restoration.
A portrait of a great American dynasty and its legacy in business, technology, the arts, and philanthropyMeyer Guggenheim, a Swiss immigrant, founded a great American business dynasty. At their peak in the early twentieth century, the Guggenheims were reckoned among America's wealthiest, and the richest Jewish family in the world after the Rothschilds. They belonged to Our Crowd, that tight social circle of New York Jewish plutocrats, but unlike the others -- primarily merchants and financiers -- they made their money by extracting and refining copper, silver, lead, tin, and gold.The secret of their success, the patriarch believed, was their unity, and in the early years Meyer's seven sons, under the leadership of Daniel, worked as one to expand their growing mining and smelting empire. Family solidarity eventually decayed (along with their Jewish faith), but even more damaging was the paucity of male heirs as Meyer and the original set of brothers passed from the scene.In the third generation, Harry Guggenheim, Daniel's son, took over leadership and made the family a force in aviation, publishing, and horse-racing. He desperately sought a successor but tragically failed and was forced to watch as the great Guggenheim business enterprise crumbled.Meanwhile, "Guggenheim" came to mean art more than industry. In the mid-twentieth century, led by Meyer's son Solomon and Solomon's niece Peggy, the Guggenheims became the agents of modernism in the visual arts. Peggy, in America during the war years, midwifed the school of abstract expressionism, which brought art leadership to New York City. Solomon's museum has been innovative in spreading the riches of Western art around the world. After the generation of Harry and Peggy, the family has continued to produce many accomplished members, such as publisher Roger Straus II and archaeologist Iris Love.In The Guggenheims, through meticulous research and absorbing prose, Irwin Unger, the winner of a Pulitzer Prize in history, and his wife, Debi Unger, convey a unique and remarkable story -- epic in its scope -- of one family's amazing rise to prominence.
Since glasnost began, Russia's most eminent historians have taken advantage of new archival access and the end of censorship and conformity to reassess and reinterpret their history. Through this process they are linking up with Russia's great historiographic tradition while producing work that is fresh and modern. In "The Emperors and Empresses of Russia", renowned Russian historians tell the story of the Romanovs as complex individual personalities and as key institutional actors in Russian history, from the empire builder Peter I to the last tsar, Nicholas II. These portraits are contributions to the writing of history, partaking neither of wooden ideologisation nor of naive romanticisation.
Since glasnost began, Russia's most eminent historians have taken advantage of new archival access and the end of censorship and conformity to reassess and reinterpret their history. Through this process they are linking up with Russia's great historiographic tradition while producing work that is fresh and modern. In "The Emperors and Empresses of Russia", renowned Russian historians tell the story of the Romanovs as complex individual personalities and as key institutional actors in Russian history, from the empire builder Peter I to the last tsar, Nicholas II. These portraits are contributions to the writing of history, partaking neither of wooden ideologisation nor of naive romanticisation.
"[Snorri Sturluson] speaks-- as almost no other historian ever has spoken-- with the authority of a man whose masterful skills would have made him one of the formidable, foremost in any of the events he records. So he saturates even remotely past happenings with a gripping first-hand quality...Hollander's translation is very good, fresh on every page ...Wherever you open the book, the life grips you and you read on...." -- Ted Hughes, New York Review of Books "Among the many contibutions to world literature that ancient Iceland has given us, Heimskringla stands out as one of the truly monumental works. Among medieval European histories in the vernacular it has no equal." -- Modern Philology Beginning with the dim prehistory of the mythical gods and their descendants, Heimskringla recounts the history of the kings of Norway through the reign of Olaf Haraldsson, who became Norway's patron saint. Once found in most homes and schools and still regarded as a national treasure, Heimskringla influenced the thinking and literary style of Scandinavia over several centuries.
The incredible conclusion to the investigation into Jesus and Mary's bloodline which first began in Gardner's Bloodline of the Holy Grail. Now Gardner reveals centuries of previously inaccessible archives that show the truth about what became of Jesus and Mary Magdalene's offspring. Much has been written about the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, who Jesus was, whether he and Mary had children, and what became of them. The Grail Enigma is the first book that can answer those questions in amazingly accurate detail. Unique to any book on the subject, this contains full genealogical charts that trace the messianic offspring, historically named Tamar, Joshua and Joseph, and their lineage through 600 years through to Arthur Pendragon. Gardner's unrivalled access to Vatican archives reveal Christian manuscripts dating back to the 2nd century that document Mary as the 'bride of Christ' and Jesus's heirs who became very influential within the Roman Empire. In the years following the crucifixion they were hunted down. Four hundred years later, the New Testament gospels of Mathew, Mark and Luke were compiled removing all reference to the messianic marriage and bloodline, but the older gospels still document their legacy. Tracing the messianic line through 600 years since Jesus's crucifixion, Gardner explains how the fate of the messianic line became encoded in the Grail legend of King Arthur. The mythology of Arthur also reflected his messianic ancestor Jesus - in the messianic tradition, these 'Once and Future Kings' both chosen to lead their people and prophesied to return again. Using new and previously unpublished documentary archives, The Grail Enigma traces the detailed history of the descendants of Jesus and how the Roman Church sought to destroy their legacy and the most fundamental elements of the original Christian movement.
In "Of Chastity and Power," Philippa Berry combines Renaissance
scholarship with feminist literary criticism to reject former
accounts of the cult of Elizabeth, which presented both the queen's
gender and her marital status as unproblematic.
This exciting and psychologically penetrating account of the life and rule of Russia's eighteenth-century tsar-reformer develops an important theme. What happens when the drive for "progress" is linked to an autocratic, expansionist impulse rather than a larger goal of human emancipation? What was the price of power - for Russia, and for Peter himself? Evgenii V. Anisimov's provocative history of Peter thus asks important questions with special resonance today.
Winner of the prestigious MacIver Award when it was first
published, this remains a towering work of modern political
sociology, especially of macrosociology. Its main objective is
comparative analysis of political commonalities found in different
societies, both historical and present. The book seeks to find some
pattern or laws in the structure and development of such systems.
The imaginative use of data helps to bring order into what might
otherwise be considered a speculative volume.
Gustavus Adolphus (1594--1632) dominated his age: he made Sweden the leading power of Northern Europe, was the principal upholder of the Protestant cause in the Thirty Years War, and was a great administrator as well as a brilliant soldier. His toleration and reforms helped define the development of the modern state. This concise study of his career, by the doyen of modern historians of the North, appeared in 1973. Long unavailable but now revised, expanded, updated and reset, it makes a welcome return in Profiles in Power.
Susan Doran describes and analyses the process of the Elizabethan Reformation, placing it in an English and a European context. She examines the religious views and policies of the Queen, the making of the 1559 settlement and the resulting reforms. The changing beliefs of the English people are discussed, and the author charts the fortunes of both Puritanism and Catholicism. Finally she looks at the strengths and weaknesses of Elizabeth I as royal governor, and of the Church of England as a whole.
The public seem to have an insatiable appetite for information about the Royal family. Every day the media carry news and pictures about the most famous family in the world. Yet social scientists have virtually ignored this strange mass obsession. Now, Michael Billig, a social psychologist, examines the significance of this interest in royalty. He argues that the Royal family is a symbol of continuity in national consciousness. He supports this claim with analyses of 63 English families discussing the Royal family. As the families talk about royalty, they are talking about much more: about gender, nationality, family life, the media, inequality, sex. Above all, they are talking about themselves. The book shows how this talk can be simultaneously serious and funny. There are jokes, criticism, praise and, above all, acceptance. Billig does much more than simply portray attitudes' towards royalty. He shows how our commonsense attitudes and ordinary desires are constructed and contributes new insights about ideology and popular memory. This book should be of interest to students of sociology, cultural studies, psychology, and the general reader.
This is a book for those thousands of family historians who have already made some progress in tracing their family tree and have become interested in the places where their ancestors lived, worked and raised children. It emphasises the diversity and extraordinary complexity of the rural and urban communities in provincial England even before the great changes associated with the Industrial Revolution.
Spanning from the inauguration of James I in 1603 to the execution of Charles I in 1649, the Stuart court saw the emergence of a full expression of Renaissance culture in Britain. Hart examines the influence of magic on Renaissance art and how in its role as an element of royal propaganda, art was used to represent the power of the monarch and reflect his apparent command over the hidden forces of nature. Court artists sought to represent magic as an expression of the Stuart Kings' divine right, and later of their policy of Absolutism, through masques, sermons, heraldry, gardens, architecture and processions. As such, magic of the kind enshrined in Neoplatonic philosophy and the court art which expressed its cosmology, played their part in the complex causes of the Civil War and the destruction of the Stuart image which followed in its wake.
Professor Woolrych surveys the establishment and history if the Commonwealth and Protectorate, first explaining how the country lost its king, and how Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector. Professor Woolrych challenges accepted views on the nature of the Protectorate, and finally offers some guidelines to the tangled period between Cromwell's death and the Restoration.
This is a handy and colourful illustrated guide to reading, writing and understanding ancient Egyptian names, epithets, titles and phrases. The Egyptians believed that the creator god Ptah brought the world into being by naming everything in it. Names had great power, and kings often over-wrote their own names on the monuments of earlier rulers. A person's name was a vitally important part of them, and the Egyptians were very concerned that their names should be recorded, remembered and spoken. Criminals and those who had fallen out of favour could be punished - wiped out of history - by having their names destroyed or defaced. The hieroglyphic script provided a beautiful, flexible and expressive means to write the names of humans, gods and animals. Angela McDonald explains the meanings of Egyptian personal names and how they were made up (Rameses = 'Ra has given birth to him') and demonstrates how they were written in different ways to convey various shades of meaning. Royal and divine names are always given special treatment. The Egyptians were not always formal, and nicknames were common. Even the names of pet animals are recorded in tomb paintings.
Discussion of display through a range of artefacts and in a variety of contexts: family and lineage, social distinction and aspiration, ceremony and social bonding, and the expression of power and authority. Medieval culture was intensely visual. Although this has long been recognised by art historians and by enthusiasts for particular media, there has been little attempt to study social display as a subject in its own right. And yet,display takes us directly into the values, aspirations and, indeed, anxieties of past societies. In this illustrated volume a group of experts address a series of interrelated themes around the issue of display and do so in a waywhich avoids jargon and overly technical language. Among the themes are family and lineage, social distinction and aspiration, ceremony and social bonding, and the expression of power and authority. The media include monumental effigies, brasses, stained glass, rolls of arms, manuscripts, jewels, plate, seals and coins. Contributors: MAURICE KEEN, DAVID CROUCH, PETER COSS, CAROLINE SHENTON, ADRIAN AILES, FREDERIQUE LACHAUD, MARIAN CAMPBELL, BRIAN and MOIRA GITTOS, NIGEL SAUL, FIONN PILBROW, CAROLINE BARRON and JOHN WATTS.
No family better represents the overlapping roles of administrator and scientist in the British empire than the Roths. Descended from a Hungarian emigrant to Australia, two generations of Roths served the empire on four continents and, at the same time, produced ethnographic, archaeological, and linguistic studies that form the basis for much modern research. This volume assesses the often-conflicting roles and contributions of the Roths as government servants and anthropologists. Most of the volume deals with Walter E. Roth, who developed foundational studies of both the Australian Aborigines-considered to be among the first systematic ethnographies anywhere-and South American tribes while serving as Chief Protector of Aborigines in Queensland and later medical officer, magistrate, museum curator and indigenous relations officer in British Guyana. Henry Ling Roth's contributions to the anthropology of Tasmania, Benin, Sarawak, and New Zealand are also enumerated, as are the publications and administrative activities of the succeeding generation of Roths. This volume serves the reader as a family biography, a slice of the English colonial history, and an important introduction to the history of anthropology.
From decade to decade, significant changes occur in the choice of
first names for children. One-time favorites are perceived as old
fashioned and replaced by new choices. In "The Name Game," Jrgen
Gerhards shows that shifts in the choice of names are based on more
than arbitrary trends of fashion. Instead, he demonstrates, they
are determined by larger currents in cultural modernization.
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