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Books > History
The story of Napoleon and Betsy Balcombe is an unusual and
fascinating tale. A fallen Emperor who once controlled most of
Europe makes friends with an impudent, pretty and spirited young
English girl, just about the celebrate her thirteenth birthday.
Betsy produced a book full of interest, but notwithstanding that
the book wanders backwards and forward chronologically, the general
tenor of the relationship between this young girl and Napoleon is
beyond question, and it was of an unusual and extremely friendly
nature. Napoleon's fall from an unprecedented position of power to
humiliating confinement must have been an impossible burden to have
lived with, and yet, despite this - or possibly because of it -
Napoleon befriended this child and held genuine affection for her.
Despite the naivety, the warmth of the friendship between the
ex-emperor and little 'Mees' Balcombe shines through, and her text
is well-worth providing in this new edition. Napoleon was at the
Briars for eight weeks, but the family were very close to the
community at Longwood, some two miles further up hill and inland,
and visited weekly, sometimes more often.It was here, as Betsy
matured and grew more responsible, that the friendship developed,
to the extent that she assisted Napoleon with his attempts at
English. She was daring as well as impudent and with an
irrepressible sense of humour she unlocked the inner child in
Napoleon that led to the famous friendship. He found her boldness
amusing and occasionally alarming. It must have been a welcome
diversion from his darker thoughts.
Historians have long regarded fashion as something peculiarly
Western. In this surprising, sumptuously illustrated book, Antonia
Finnane challenges this view, which she argues is based on
nineteenth- and twentieth-century representations of Chinese dress
as traditional and unchanging. Fashions, she shows, were part of
Chinese life in the late imperial era, even if a fashion industry
was not then apparent. In the early twentieth century the key
features of modern fashion became evident, particularly in
Shanghai, and rapidly changing dress styles showed the effects. The
volatility of Chinese dress throughout the twentieth century
matched vicissitudes in national politics. Finnane describes in
detail how the close-fitting jacket and high collar of the 1911
Revolutionary period, the skirt and jacket-blouse of the May Fourth
era, and the military style popular in the Cultural Revolution gave
way finally to the variegated, globalized wardrobe of today. She
brilliantly connects China's modernization and global visibility
with changes in dress, offering a vivid portrait of the complex,
subtle, and sometimes contradictory ways the people of China have
worn their nation on their backs.
The dazzling companion volume to the bestselling MYTHOS. There are heroes - and then there are Greek heroes.
Few mere mortals have ever embarked on such bold and heart-stirring adventures, overcome myriad monstrous perils, or outwitted scheming vengeful gods, quite as stylishly and triumphantly as Greek heroes.
In this companion to his bestselling Mythos, Stephen Fry brilliantly retells these dramatic, funny, tragic and timeless tales. Join Jason aboard the Argo as he quests for the Golden Fleece. See Atalanta - who was raised by bears - outrun any man before being tricked with golden apples. Witness wily Oedipus solve the riddle of the Sphinx and discover how Bellerophon captures the winged horse Pegasus to help him slay the monster Chimera.
Heroes is the story of what we mortals are truly capable of - at our worst and our very best.
East-West detente was hotly debated during its heyday in the 1970s.
Critics saw it as a form of appeasement which, they claimed,
strengthened communism while weakening the West. Supporters saw it
variously as a means of reducing the danger of war, subverting
communism and, in Europe, bridging the division of the continent.
This book presents a balanced assessment of the reality of detente,
and of the different interests involved, looking back through the
eyes of expert contributors from Britain, Germany, France, Italy,
Poland, Hungary and Austria. It takes a particularly close look at
the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), which
produced the Helsinki Final Act and a series of follow-up measure
that continue to evolve to the present day. It argues that, in
negotiating the text of the Final Act, the West won a victory that
was insufficiently recognized at the time. Davy concludes that
detente was ambiguous, conferring short-term political and economic
benefits on East European regimes while at the same time weakening
their foundations and contributing to their collapse in 1989.
European Detente will be of interest to students, academics and
practitioners in international relations, strategic studies and
international politics, particularly those specializing in Eastern
Europe.
A gripping first hand account of how Soviet Communism impacted on
those who had to live their daily lives under its rule.
Two days after Christmas 1944, during the harshest winter in living
memory, 33 SAS troops parachuted into the valley of Rossano,
Northern Italy. Carried out in broad daylight, the parachute drop
was intended to deceive observing enemy forces into believing that
a full parachute brigade of 400 men had landed behind them. Drawing
on post-op reports and memoirs, this book is a fictionalised
account written from the perspective of one of the rank and file
parachutists who took part in the operation: the author's father.
Scrupulously researched and richly illustrated, Hann's personal
narrative brings to life the co-ordinated attemptsof the SAS and
local partisans to engage and evade the enemy. For the first time,
Hann provides a detailed account of some of the devastating
setbacks and triumphs of Operation Galia: one of the hardest fought
and most successful operations of the Second World War.
This work explores the value of the motorcycle to communications,
and how the despatch rider helped prevent German victory.
THE PERFECT GIFT FOR ALL BIBLIOMANIACS A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE
TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, SPECTATOR AND DAILY MAIL A WATERSTONES BEST
POPULAR SCIENCE BOOK 2022 Plunge into this rich and surprising A-Z
compendium to discover how our fixations have taken shape, from the
Middle Ages to the present day, as bestselling author Kate
Summerscale deftly traces the threads between the past and present,
the psychological and social, the personal and the political.
'Fascinating ... Phobias and manias create a magical space between
us and the world' Malcolm Gaskill, author of the No. 1 bestseller
The Ruin of All Witches 'Fascinating' Observer 'An endlessly
intriguing book ... All the bibliomanes (book nutters) I know will
love it' Daily Mail
This manual lists the different types of fuzes fitted to both
British and German artillery and trench mortar projectiles and
details how 'safe' they are to handle.
In November 2005, Washington's iconic killer whales, known as
Southern Resident orcas, were placed on the endangered species
list. It was a victory long overdue for a fragile population of
fewer than one hundred whales. Author and certified marine
naturalist Sandra Pollard traces the story and destinies of the
many Southern Resident orcas captured for commercial purposes in or
near the Puget Sound between 1964 and 1976. During this time, these
highly intelligent members of the dolphin family lost nearly
one-third of their population. Drawing on original archive
material, this important volume outlines the history of orca
captivity while also recounting the harrowing struggle--and
ultimate triumph--for the Puget Sound orcas' freedom.
Has any war in history gone according to plan? Monarchs, autocrats
and elected leaders alike have a dismal record on launching and
prosecuting wars. From pursuing over- ambitious goals, to making
decisions without considering intelligence, terrain, morale or the
enemy's capabilities, they have all erred. This not only wastes the
lives of civilians, the enemy and one's own soldiers, but also
means a failure to accomplish your objectives. Conflict scholar and
former soldier Mike Martin takes the reader through the hard,
elegant logic of how to fight an interstate war on land, including
the factors that are often overlooked: the importance of
psychology, training, getting the logistics right, and maintaining
your esprit de corps. He then explains how to orchestrate the
building blocks of military force--from infantry, artillery and air
support, to information and cyber warfare-- in order to prevail
over your adversary. 'How to Fight a War' explains in cool and
precise prose the art of using extreme violence to convince your
enemy that they should submit. It should be read by everyone who
seeks to understand today's conflicts and those to come--and by all
those who wish to lead us through the next decade of wars.
Unshackled Spirit was a unique 'Spitfire' fighter aircraft
purchased by allied prisoners of war whilst imprisoned in Germany;
the book explains how this remarkable achievement was possible
using previously restricted and secret material. In addition,
accounts are compiled from a collection of original YMCA personal
wartime logs as issued to RAF prisoners of war in 1944. 'Unshackled
Spirit' draws out the story of each aviator, how they became a
prisoner of war and life in the various camps across occupied
Europe. Extensive and amazingly detailed pieces of artwork are
taken from the logs and illustrated in the book. The balance of
fact and inspired drawings makes for an impressive collection from
a number of incarcerated aviators. The hardship of POW's and the
extraordinary means adopted to escape are touched upon, but more
importantly the aspect of how agencies helped by supplying all
manner of equipment to the thousands of men behind barbed wire. The
role of MI9 is revealed and how it participated in those agencies
exploring the efforts taken to smuggle escape material into the
prisoner of war camps without breeching the Geneva Convention and
finally the extraordinary measures taken to secure intelligence
during the process of prisoner repatriation.
Americans call the Second World War "the Good War." But before it
even began, America's ally Stalin had killed millions of his own
citizens-and kept killing them during and after the war. Before
Hitler was defeated, he had murdered six million Jews and nearly as
many other Europeans. At war's end, German and Soviet killing sites
fell behind the Iron Curtain, leaving the history of mass killing
in darkness. ? Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly
definitive, Bloodlands is a new kind of European history,
presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist
regimes as two aspects of a single story. With a new afterword
addressing the relevance of these events to the contemporary
decline of democracy, Bloodlands is required reading for anyone
seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history and its
meaning today.
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