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Books > History > European history > General
A work delving into the end of the Romanov dynasty and the rise of
the Bolsheviks by a foremost figure in the field of geopolitics in
the early 20th century
Commentaries of Caesar on the Gallic War. The original text reduced
to the natural English order with a literal interlinear translation
of the first seven books.
Commentaries of Caesar on the Gallic War. The original text reduced
to the natural English order with a literal interlinear translation
of the first seven books.
From the Occupy protests to the Black Lives Matter movement and
school strikes for climate action, the twenty-first century has
been rife with activism. Although very different from one another,
each of these movements has created alliances across borders, with
activists stressing that their concerns are not confined to
individual nation states. In this book, Daniel Laqua shows that
global efforts of this kind are not a recent phenomenon, and that
as long as there have been borders, activists have sought to cross
them. Activism Across Borders since 1870 explores how individuals,
groups and organisations have fostered bonds in their quest for
political and social change, and considers the impact of national
and ideological boundaries on their efforts. Focusing on Europe but
with a global outlook, the book acknowledges the importance of
imperial and postcolonial settings for groups and individuals that
expressed far-reaching ambitions. From feminism and socialism to
anti-war campaigns and green politics, this book approaches
transnational activism with an emphasis on four features:
connectedness, ambivalence, transience and marginality. In doing
so, it demonstrates the intertwined nature of different movements,
problematizes transnational action, discusses the temporary nature
of some alliances, and shows how transnationalism has been used by
those marginalized at the national level. With a broad
chronological perspective and thematic chapters, it provides
historical context, clarifies terms and concepts, and offers an
alternative history of modern Europe through the lens of activists,
movements and campaigns.
Few philosophers are more often referred to and more often
misunderstood than Machiavelli. He was truly a product of the
Renaissance, and he was as much a revolutionary in the field of
political philosophy as Leonardo or Michelangelo were in painting
and sculpture. He watched his native Florence lose its independence
to the French, thanks to poor leadership from the Medici successors
to the great Lorenzo (Il Magnifico). Machiavelli was a keen
observer of people, and he spent years studying events and people
before writing his famous books. Descended from minor nobility,
Machiavelli grew up in a household that was run by a vacillating
and incompetent father. He was well educated and smart, and he
entered government service as a clerk. He eventually became an
important figure in the Florentine state but was defeated by the
deposed Medici and Pope Julius II. He was tortured but eventually
freed by the restored Medici. No longer employed, he retired to his
home to write the books for which he is remembered. Machiavelli had
seen the best and the worst of human nature, and he understood how
the world operated. He drew his observations from life, and he was
appropriately cynical in his writing, given what he had personally
experienced. He was an outstanding writer, and his work remains
fascinating nearly 500 years later.
"Old maps lead you to strange and unexpected places, and none does
so more ineluctably than the subject of this book: the giant,
beguiling Waldseemuller world map of 1507." So begins this
remarkable story of the map that gave America its name.
For millennia Europeans believed that the world consisted of three
parts: Europe, Africa, and Asia. They drew the three continents in
countless shapes and sizes on their maps, but occasionally they
hinted at the existence of a "fourth part of the world," a
mysterious, inaccessible place, separated from the rest by a vast
expanse of ocean. It was a land of myth--until 1507, that is, when
Martin Waldseemuller and Matthias Ringmann, two obscure scholars
working in the mountains of eastern France, made it real. Columbus
had died the year before convinced that he had sailed to Asia, but
Waldseemuller and Ringmann, after reading about the Atlantic
discoveries of Columbus's contemporary Amerigo Vespucci, came to a
startling conclusion: Vespucci had reached the fourth part of the
world. To celebrate his achievement, Waldseemuller and Ringmann
printed a huge map, for the first time showing the New World
surrounded by water and distinct from Asia, and in Vespucci's honor
they gave this New World a name: America.
"
The Fourth Part of the World "is the story behind that map, a
thrilling saga of geographical and intellectual exploration, full
of outsize thinkers and voyages. Taking a kaleidoscopic approach,
Toby Lester traces the origins of our modern worldview. His
narrative sweeps across continents and centuries, zeroing in on
different portions of the map to reveal strands of ancient legend,
Biblical prophecy, classical learning, medieval exploration,
imperial ambitions, and more. In Lester's telling the map comes
alive: Marco Polo and the early Christian missionaries trek across
Central Asia and China; Europe's early humanists travel to monastic
libraries to recover ancient texts; Portuguese merchants round up
the first West African slaves; Christopher Columbus and Amerigo
Vespucci make their epic voyages of discovery; and finally,
vitally, Nicholas Copernicus makes an appearance, deducing from the
new geography shown on the Waldseemuller map that the earth could
not lie at the center of the cosmos. The map literally altered
humanity's worldview.
One thousand copies of the map were printed, yet only one remains.
Discovered accidentally in 1901 in the library of a German castle
it was bought in 2003 for the unprecedented sum of $10 million by
the Library of Congress, where it is now on permanent public
display. Lavishly illustrated with rare maps and diagrams, "The
Fourth Part of the World "is the story of that map: the dazzling
story of the geographical and intellectual journeys that have
helped us decipher our world.
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Nero
(Hardcover)
Stephen Phillips
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R892
Discovery Miles 8 920
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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The innovative city culture of Florence was the crucible within
which Renaissance ideas first caught fire. With its soaring
cathedral dome and its classically-inspired palaces and piazzas, it
is perhaps the finest single expression of a society that is still
at its heart an urban one. For, as Brian Jeffrey Maxson reveals, it
is above all the city-state - the walled commune which became the
chief driver of European commerce, culture, banking and art - that
is medieval Italy's enduring legacy to the present. Charting the
transition of Florence from an obscure Guelph republic to a
regional superpower in which the glittering court of Lorenzo the
Magnificent became the pride and envy of the continent, the author
authoritatively discusses a city that looked to the past for ideas
even as it articulated a novel creativity. Uncovering passionate
dispute and intrigue, Maxson sheds fresh light too on seminal
events like the fiery end of oratorical firebrand Savonarola and
Giuliano de' Medici's brutal murder by the rival Pazzi family. This
book shows why Florence, harbinger and heartland of the
Renaissance, is and has always been unique.
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