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Books > History > European history > General
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.
From the beginning of the nineteenth century, Western Europe
witnessed the emergence of a 'mass' society. Grand social processes
such as urbanisation, industrialisation and democratisation blurred
the previous sharp distinctions that had divided society. This
massive transformation is central to our understanding of modern
society. Comparing the British and Dutch experience of mass society
in the twentieth century, this book considers five major areas:
politics, welfare, media, leisure and youth culture. In each
section, two well-known specialists - one from each country - look
at the conditions in the rise of a mass society, and show how there
were distinctively British and Dutch conditions in the rise of a
mass society. Drawing on history, cultural studies and sociology,
the authors bring new insight into the development of modern
European society.
The brilliant and provocative new book from one of the world’s foremost political writers.
In The War on the West, international bestselling author Douglas Murray asks: if the history of humankind is one of slavery, conquest, prejudice, genocide and exploitation, why are only Western nations taking the blame for it?
It’s become perfectly acceptable to celebrate the contributions of non-Western cultures, but discussing their flaws and crimes is called hate speech. What’s more it has become acceptable to discuss the flaws and crimes of Western culture, but celebrating their contributions is also called hate speech. Some of this is a much-needed reckoning; however, some is part of a larger international attack on reason, democracy, science, progress and the citizens of the West by dishonest scholars, hatemongers, hostile nations and human-rights abusers hoping to distract from their ongoing villainy.
In The War on the West, Douglas Murray shows the ways in which many well-meaning people have been lured into polarisation by lies, and shows how far the world’s most crucial political debates have been hijacked across Europe and America. Propelled by an incisive deconstruction of inconsistent arguments and hypocritical activism, The War on the West is an essential and urgent polemic that cements Murray’s status as one of the world’s foremost political writers.
"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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