In central Brussels stands a statue of a young woman. Built in 1923, it is the first monument to a working-class woman in European history. Her name was Gabrielle Petit. History has forgotten Petit, an ambitious and patriotic Belgian, executed by firing squad in 1916 for her role as an intelligence agent for the British Army. After the First World War she was celebrated as an example of stern endeavour, but a hundred years later her memory has faded. In the first part of this historical biography Sophie De Schaepdrijver uses Petit's life to explore gender, class and heroism in the context of occupied Europe. Petit's experiences reveal the reality of civilian engagement under military occupation and the emergence of modern espionage. The second part of the book focuses on the legacy and cultural memory of Petit and the First World War. By analysing Petit's representation in ceremony, discourse and popular culture De Schaepdrijver expands our understanding of remembrance across the 20th century.

Born in 1853, Jared Flagg was the black sheep of an illustrious New York family. His father, Jared Bradley Flagg, was a noted portraitist and Episcopalian minister who served as Rector of Grace Church, in Brooklyn Heights. His older brothers were prominent, Paris-trained artists in their own right. A younger brother became a famous architect, while another went on to found a major Wall Street brokerage. One of his younger sisters married publisher Charles Scribner, II; another was a member of the famed "400" Manhattan socialites. Jared, Jr., on the other hand, took to the seamier side of American life, instigating any number of illegal schemes, ranging from leasing furnished flats to facilitate prostitution, to finding chorus line and modeling jobs for pretty but talentless young women, to a phony investment scheme that paid 52% a year, to the sale of worthless bonds backed by heavily mortgaged real estate. Frequently penalized for his criminal and unethical activities by the time of his death in 1926, Jared Flagg barreled his way through Gilded and Jazz Age America, offering a fascinating and heretofore unknown view of how a rising empire evolved at a crucial through crucial eras in its history.

A New York Times bestseller, A Slave in the White House received glowing reviewsthatpraised its narrative and original research. It is the story of Paul Jennings, who was born into slavery on the plantation of James and Dolley Madison in Virginia and moved with the Madison household staff to the White House. Jennings was a self-taught and self-made man who purchased his own freedom and penned the first ever White House memoir. Nearly two centuries later, Montpelier scholar Elizabeth Dowling Taylor uncovered the memoir. In this amazing narrative she reconstructs his lifeand hisunusual portraits of James and Dolley Madison andSenator Daniel Websterin early nineteenth century Washington, as well as the 1812 assault on British troops and Jennings' heroic saving of George Washington's portrait. Fascinating and original, this is an important contribution to American history.

Sarah Heckford, born a Victorian lady in 1839, defied convention. Despite disability and the confines of upper-class expectations, she broke all boundaries; first to volunteer at a cholera hospital; then to start a children’s hospital in London’s East End with her husband. Newly widowed, she left first for Italy and India, and then for South Africa.

Arriving at Durban in 1878, Sarah set out for the Transvaal. Here she became a governess and then a farmer; later she became a transport-rider, trading goods with hunters and miners in the Lowveld. She made a life for herself in Africa despite considerable drawbacks, all the while trying to find ways of bettering the lives of those around her.

Author Vivien Allen has brought this remarkable woman to life in a riveting biography.

Two resolute women-the first female 'warco' and the trader
This special Leonaur two-in-one volume contains accounts by two resourceful and independent women who made their way through the often hostile bushlands of Southern Africa in the 19th Century. The youngest daughter of the 7th Duke of Marlborough and aunt to Winston Churchill, the future Prime Minister, Lady Sarah-Spencer Churchill became the first female war correspondent when she was recruited to cover the siege of Mafeking, during the Second Boer War, for the Daily Mail. Baden-Powell and his garrison including (Lady Sarah's husband), under constant attack by superior Boer forces, were awaiting relief from the British Army under Roberts. On Baden-Powell's insistence Lady Sarah had left Mafeking before it was surrounded, but had been captured by the Boers and returned to the town under a prisoner exchange scheme. Although untrained as a journalist, Lady Sarah's 'matter of fact' style proved to be a huge hit with the domestic reading audience for depicting the' carry on under any adversity' bulldog spirit that they felt typified their national character. From an earlier period of the Cape's troubled colonial history, the second work in this book, relating Mrs. Heckford's experiences, are of no less interest. Arriving in the Cape on the eve of the Zulu War in the late 1870s, this remarkable and resolute lady carved a life for herself in close proximity to the potentially dangerous Kaffir tribes and the Boers who were disaffected by British Imperial rule and by the annexation of the Transvaal in particular. The hostilities of the First Anglo-Boer War, notable for the British disaster at Majuba Hill in 1881, broke out in late 1880 and Mrs. Heckford found herself besieged in Pretoria in the midst of the uprising.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands.

At the beginning of the 21st century, only a few can deny that the Mexican State is in full decline, as there exist axioms of political theory that show it, and economic indicators that confirm it. In addition, recent sociological studies agree in explaining the substantial loss of values in the present generation. The breakdown of the presidential institution, which still serves as the supreme organ because of its constitutional powers, is evident. Mexico: The Genesis of its Political Decomposition (Miguel Aleman Valdes: 1936 to 1952) was written with theoretical rigor, and at the same time, directed and supported by the renowned Dr. Luis Javier Garrido. In this text, the reader will find the origin of political decomposition in Mexico, and the various causes which have led to its structural degeneration. In content, you will comprehend the two most important political cycles in the life of this nation: the first, governed by the post-revolutionary military presidents, and the second, the one which started with Miguel Aleman Valdes, considered as the civilian governments.

Meet the First Ladies of the United States-sometimes inspiring, sometimes tragic, always fascinating-women who, though often unsung, helped hold the nation together in its infancy and advance it as a world power. More than simply serving as America's "hostesses," many of the nation's First Ladies played vital roles in shaping their husband's presidency and serving as political activists in their own right. From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama, their inspiring stories come alive in this handsomely illustrated encyclopedia. Within its pages, the First Ladies are revealed as human beings who, one day, awoke to find the eyes of the world upon them. The book differs from others by showcasing America's First Ladies in their own words, as flesh-and-blood individuals. Readers will discover which First Lady held off Napoleon's army with a toy sword, why women had to be "pale, frail, and ailing," and which First Lady was called "Sunshine" and which was "Hellcat." Each entry includes a biographical essay that details the life of the woman and places her within the political, social, and cultural context of her time. Each also offers a related primary document that helps define the First Lady's legacy as well as a short bibliography for further information. Written in a lively, compelling style, this highly readable volume is perfect for junior high, high school, and college students as well as the general public. Overviews the social, political, and cultural significance of America's First Ladies in a convenient, chronological, reference format Includes letters, notes, and speeches that allow the First Ladies to speak for themselves Features engaging and informative sidebars that place the First Ladies in the cultural context of their times Shares the 2014 First Ladies Ranking from the Siena Research Institute Facilitates student research through an extensive reading guide and a list of online resources that will foster critical reading, thinking, and writing skills

What are you willing to do to survive? What are you willing to endure if it means you might live? 'Achingly moving, gives much-needed hope . . . Deserves the status both as a valuable historical source and as a stand-out memoir' Daily Express 'A story that needs to be heard' 5***** Reader Review Entering Terezin, a Nazi concentration camp, Franci was expected to die. She refused. In the summer of 1942, twenty-two-year-old Franci Rabinek - designated a Jew by the Nazi racial laws - arrived at Terezin, a concentration camp and ghetto forty miles north of her home in Prague. It would be the beginning of her three-year journey from Terezin to the Czech family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, to the slave labour camps in Hamburg, and finally to Bergen Belsen. Franci, a spirited and glamorous young woman, was known among her fellow inmates as the Prague dress designer. Having endured the transportation of her parents, she never forgot her mother's parting words: 'Your only duty to us is to stay alive'. During an Auschwitz selection, Franci would spontaneously lie to Nazi officer Dr Josef Mengele, and claim to be an electrician. A split-second decision that would go on to endanger - and save - her life. Unpublished for 50 years, Franci's War is an astonishing account of one woman's attempt to survive. Heartbreaking and candid, Franci finds the light in her darkest years and the horrors she faces instill in her, strength and resilience to survive and to live again. She gives a voice to the women prisoners in her tight-knit circle of friends. Her testimony sheds new light on the alliances, love affairs, and sexual barter that took place during the Holocaust, offering a compelling insight into the resilience and courage of ordinary people in an extraordinary situation. Above all, Franci's War asks us to explore what it takes to survive, and what it means to truly live. 'A candid account of shocking events. Franci is someone many women today will be able to identify with' 5***** Reader Review 'First-hand accounts of life in Nazi death camps never lose their terrible power but few are as extraordinary as Franci's War' Mail on Sunday 'Fascinating and traumatic. Well worth a read' 5***** Reader Review