Lord Derby, Lancashire's highest-ranked nobleman and its principal royalist, once offered the opinion that the English civil wars had been a 'general plague of madness'. Complex and bedevilling, the earl defied anyone to tell the complete story of 'so foolish, so wicked, so lasting a war'. Yet attempting to chronicle and to explain the events is both fascinating and hugely important. Nationally and at the county level the impact and significance of the wars can hardly be over-stated: the conflict involved our ancestors fighting one another, on and off, for a period of nine years; almost every part of Lancashire witnessed warfare of some kind at one time or another, and several towns in particular saw bloody sieges and at least one episode characterised as a massacre. Nationally the wars resulted in the execution of the king; in 1651 the Earl of Derby himself was executed in Bolton in large measure because he had taken a leading part in the so-called massacre in that town in 1644.In the early months of the civil wars many could barely distinguish what it was that divided people in 'this war without an enemy', as the royalist William Waller famously wrote; yet by the end of it parliament had abolished monarchy itself and created the only republic in over a millennium of England's history. Over the ensuing centuries this period has been described variously as a rebellion, as a series of civil wars, even as a revolution. Lancashire's role in these momentous events was quite distinctive, and relative to the size of its population particularly important. Lancashire lay right at the centre of the wars, for the conflict did not just encompass England but Ireland and Scotland too, and Lancashire's position on the coast facing Catholic, Royalist Ireland was seen as critical from the very first months.And being on the main route south from Scotland meant that the county witnessed a good deal of marching and marauding armies from the north. In this, the first full history of the Lancashire civil wars for almost a century, Stephen Bull makes extensive use of new discoveries to narrate and explain the exciting, terrible events which our ancestors witnessed in the cause either of king or parliament. From Furness to Liverpool, and from the Wyre estuary to Manchester and Warrington...civil war actions, battles, sieges and skirmishes took place in virtually every corner of Lancashire.

Killing Crazy Horse is the latest installment of the multimillion-selling Killing series is a gripping journey through the American West and the historic clashes between Native Americans and settlers. The bloody Battle of Tippecanoe was only the beginning. It's 1811 and President James Madison has ordered the destruction of Shawnee warrior chief Tecumseh's alliance of tribes in the Great Lakes region. But while General William Henry Harrison would win this fight, the armed conflict between Native Americans and the newly formed United States would rage on for decades. Bestselling authors Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard venture through the fraught history of our country's founding on already occupied lands, from General Andrew Jackson's brutal battles with the Creek Nation to President James Monroe's epic "sea to shining sea" policy, to President Martin Van Buren's cruel enforcement of a "treaty" that forced the Cherokee Nation out of their homelands along what would be called the Trail of Tears. O'Reilly and Dugard take readers behind the legends to reveal never-before-told historical moments in the fascinating creation story of America. This fast-paced, wild ride through the American frontier will shock readers and impart unexpected lessons that reverberate to this day.

Annamarie van Niekerk gaan brutaal eerlik om met vraagstukke waarmee ons daagliks worstel: plaasmoord, geweld teen vroue, skuld en onmag, aandadigheid en keuse.

Sy woon in Den Haag, maar keer terug Suid-Afrika toe vir die begrafnis van haar liewe vriend, Ruben, wat saam met sy ma in ʼn wrede plaasmoord vermoor is. Dié reis lei terug na ander reise: Van haar kinderjare in PE in ʼn streng Nasionale huishouding met ʼn Broederbondpa. Na Umtata, waar sy gaan klasgee en verlief raak op ʼn swart kollega. Na Hillbrow, waar die twee van hulle onwettig saamwoon en aktief is in skrywersirkels met vriende soos Nadine Gordimer en Njabulo Ndebele. Tot geweld ook hul verhouding binnedring. Uiteindelik na die tronk, waar sy Ruben se moordenaars gaan soek in haar strewe na verstaan.

Van Niekerk vervleg haar eie storie aangrypend met ’n verkenning van die groot kwessies in ons land. Onder ʼn bloedrooi hemel is ʼn diep ontroerende persoonlike reis, van geweld na genade, meesterlik vertel.

Hoekom is ons ryker as ons voorsate? Wat het 'n Indonesiese vulkaan met die Groot Trek te doene? Hoe wen jy 'n Wêreldbeker? En wat het Karel die Grote gemeen met koning Zwelethini? Dit is maar enkele van die vrae wat die gewilde Rapportrubriekskrywer Johan Fourie onderhoudend verken in hierdie heerlik leesbare ekonomiese geskiedenis wat strek van die migrasie uit Afrika 100 000 jaar gelede tot vandag.

Skatryk is 'n boeiende reis deur die geskiedenis wat ons wys hoe welvaart geskep en uitgebou word. Hoekom floreer een groep, maar 'n ander bly 'n sukkelbestaan voer?

Fourie verduidelik in sy unieke, vermaaklike styl vol onverwagse feite waarom die bouers van 'n samelewing - eerder as dié wat afbreek - uiteindelik seëvier.