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.

This little volume, originally published in 1838, was penned by a whaling captain for his son. Irresistibly collectable, this edition????????????featuring 112 original black-and-white plates ????????????retains all the charm of the original, including descriptions of successful voyages, whale hunting advice and sailing superstitions.

Since the city's founding in 1871, African American citizens of Birmingham have organized for equal access to justice and public accommodations. However, when thousands of young people took to the streets of Birmingham in the spring of 1963, their protest finally broke the back of segregation, bringing local leadership to its knees. While their parents could not risk loss of jobs or life, local youth agreed to bear the brunt of resistance by law enforcement and vigilantes to their acts of civil disobedience. By the fall, even youth who did not participate in the Children's Movement gave all for the struggle when a bomb placed in the 16th Street Baptist Church exploded and killed four girls.

'Powerfully argued... Fascinating and pacy' Sunday Times, Book of the Week 'Superbly written... sure to please readers of Yuval Noah Harari or Rutger Bregman' The Times 'Full of amazing facts' Observer 'A humbling story for humankind' Spectator Challenges some of the greatest cliches about colonialism... A revelation' SATHNAM SANGHERA 'Thrilling and eye-opening' LEWIS DARTNELL 'Science and history at its best' MARK HONIGSBAUM 'Unpicks everything we thought we knew... Mind blowing' CAL FLYN In this revelatory book, Dr Jonathan Kennedy argues that germs have shaped humanity at every stage, from the first success of Homo sapiens over the equally intelligent Neanderthals to the fall of Rome and the rise of Islam. How did an Indonesian volcano help cause the Black Death, setting Europe on the road to capitalism? How could 168 men extract the largest ransom in history from an opposing army of eighty thousand? And why did the Industrial Revolution lead to the birth of the modern welfare state? The latest science reveals that infectious diseases are not just something that happens to us, but a fundamental part of who we are. Indeed, the only reason humans don't lay eggs is that a virus long ago inserted itself into our DNA, and there are as many bacteria in your body as there are human cells. We have been thinking about the survival of the fittest all wrong: evolution is not simply about human strength and intelligence, but about how we live and thrive in a world dominated by microbes. By exploring the startling intimacy of our relationship with infectious diseases, Kennedy shows how they have been responsible for some of the seismic revolutions of the past 50,000 years. Provocative and brimming with insight, Pathogenesis transforms our understanding of the human story, revealing how the crisis of a pandemic can offer vital opportunities for change.

Enter Somerville, a city packed with stories larger than itself, to salute a heritage that justifies the fierce pride of its citizens. Share a perch on one of Somerville's celebrated hills with Dee Morris and Dora St. Martin and watch the raising of America's first flag and the stringing of its first telephone line. Strolling from neighborhood to neighborhood, this brief history knocks on the doors of everyone from the father of Fenway Park to Missy LeHand, Franklin D. Roosevelt s private secretary and steadfast companion. Even the notoriously elusive Captain Kidd is caught for inspection as he tries to slip through a trapdoor in a bedroom closet.

Beginning in 1541 with Hernando De Soto's Spanish expedition for gold, African Americans have held a prominent place in Chattanooga's history. Author Rita Lorraine Hubbard chronicles the ways African Americans have shaped Chattanooga, and presents inspirational achievements that have gone largely unheralded over the years.

In hierdie boek word ook op interessante wyse uitgebrei oor die generaal se verbintenis met sy psigiese vriend, Siener van Rensburg. Die boek is saamgestel deur die bekende historikus Lappe Laubsher, wat aan die einde van hierdie sketse die laaste maande van die generaal se lewe uit beskikbare bronne konstrueer. Menings word so onpartydig as moontlik gestel en slegs in spesifieke gevalle word na onwaarskynlikhede of teenstrydighede verwys. Die publikasie word opgeluister deur 13 swart en wit foto's, onder andere van die baadjie wat De la Rey aangehad het en die Daimler waarin hy gereis het toe hy doodgeskiet is.

The Rise of the African Novel is the first book to situate South African and African-language literature of the late 1880s through the early 1940s in relation to the literature of decolonization that spanned the 1950s through the 1980s, and the contemporary generation of established and emerging continental and diaspora African writers of international renown.

Calling it a major crisis in African literary criticism, Mukoma Wa Ngugi considers key questions around the misreading of African literature: Why did Chinua Achebe’s generation privilege African literature in English despite the early South African example? What are the costs of locating the start of Africa’s literary tradition in the wrong literary and historical period? What does it mean for the current generation of writers and scholars of African literature not to have an imaginative consciousness of their literary past?

While acknowledging the importance of Achebe’s generation in the African literary tradition, Mukoma Wa Ngugi challenges that narrowing of the identities and languages of the African novel and writer. In restoring the missing foundational literary period to the African literary tradition, he shows how early South African literature, in both aesthetics and politics, is in conversation with the literature of the African independence era and contemporary rooted transnational literatures.

This book will become a foundational text in African literary studies, as it raises questions about the very nature of African literature and criticism. It will be essential reading for scholars of African literary studies as well as general readers seeking a greater understanding of African literary history and the ways in which critical consensus can be manufactured and rewarded at the expense of a larger and historical literary tradition.

From the phenomenal bestselling author of Sapiens and Homo Deus

How can we protect ourselves from nuclear war or ecological catastrophe?

What do we do about the epidemic of fake news or the threat of terrorism?

How should we prepare our children for the future?

21 Lessons is an exploration of what it means to be human in an age of bewilderment.

'Fascinating…Harari has teed up a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the 21st century' Bill Gates, New York Times

Since the days of conquistador Hernan Cortes, rumours have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden deep in the Honduran interior. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and warn the legendary city is cursed: to enter it is a death sentence. They call it the Lost City of the Monkey God. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artefacts and an electrifying story of having found the City - but then committed suicide without revealing its location. Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a single-engine plane carrying a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but a lost civilization. To confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, plagues of insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. They emerged from the jungle with proof of the legend... and the curse. They had contracted a horrifying, incurable and sometimes lethal disease. Suspenseful and shocking, filled with history, adventure and dramatic twists of fortune, The Lost City of the Monkey God is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century.

Black Beauty is a novel that changed our world. Intended to ‘induce kindness’ in a Victorian audience who relied on horses for transport, travel and power, it remains a dearly loved children’s classic. Writing Black Beauty is the story of the remarkable woman who wrote this phenomenal book. Born in 1820 to a young Quaker couple, Anna Sewell grew up in poverty in London. She was 14 when she fell and injured her ankle, leaving her permanently disabled. Rejecting the limitations that Victorian society forced on disabled people, she developed an extraordinary empathy with horses, learning to ride side-saddle and drive a small carriage. Rebellious and independent-minded, Anna left the Quaker movement as a young woman but remained close friends with the women writers and abolitionists who had been empowered by its liberal principles. It was not until she became terminally ill, aged 51, that she wrote her own book. It was published in 1877, but Anna tragically died just five months later. After modest success in Britain, Black Beauty was taken up by American activist George Thorndike Angell, who made it one of the bestselling novels of all time. Using newly discovered archive material, Celia Brayfield shows how Anna Sewell developed the extraordinary resilience to rouse the conscience of Victorian Britain and make her mark upon the world.

On June 27, 1835, New Hampshire chartered the Boston & Maine Railroad, and a juggernaut was born. By 1900, the B&M operated some 2,300 miles of track in northern New England, having taken over an astonishing forty-seven different railroads since its inception. The B&M loomed particularly large in the Granite State, where it controlled 96 percent of all tracks and was the primary conveyance through the rugged heart of New England s most formidable mountain range.

From the gravity-defying Mount Washington Cog Railway to logging transport trains to the famous Depression-era Snow Train, "A History of the Boston & Maine Railroad" traces the fascinating history of New England's most renowned railway.

In 1923, with its currency effectively worthless (the exchange rate in December of that year was one dollar to 4,200,000,000,000 marks), the Weimar Republic was all but reduced to a barter economy. Expensive cigars, artworks and jewels were routine...

Druid Hill Park lies at the hears of Baltimore and made history as one of the first public parks in America. This beautifully illustrated history tells the story of Druid Hill from the seventeenth century until today, and celebrates this natural refuge for fun and relaxation in urban Baltimore.

A pioneering exploration of the differences between the brain’s right and left hemispheres and their effects on society, history, and culture—“one of the few contemporary works deserving classic status� (Nicholas Shakespeare, Times, UK)   “Persuasively argues that our society is suffering from the consequences of an over-dominant left hemisphere losing touch with its natural regulative ‘master’ the right. Brilliant and disturbing.�—Salley Vickers, a Guardian Best Book of the Year   “I know of no better exposition of the current state of functional brain neuroscience.�—W. F. Bynum, Times Literary Supplement   Why is the brain divided? The difference between right and left hemispheres has been puzzled over for centuries. Drawing upon a vast body of brain research, the renowned psychiatrist, author, and thinker Iain McGilchrist reveals that the difference between the two sides is profound—two whole, coherent, but incompatible ways of experiencing the world. The detail-oriented left hemisphere prefers mechanisms to living things and is inclined to self-interest, while the right hemisphere has greater breadth, flexibility, and generosity.   In the second part of his book, McGilchrist takes the reader on a journey through the history of Western culture, illustrating the tension between these two worlds as revealed in the thought and belief of thinkers and artists from the ancient to the modern, from Aeschylus to Magritte. He ultimately argues that, despite its inferior grasp of reality, the left hemisphere is increasingly taking precedence in today’s world—with potentially disastrous consequences.

From cooking ?coon and ?possum to recalling the heyday of Melrose Plantation, these are the heartwarming stories of Hilton Head, Bluffton and Daufuskie before, as the Gullahs might say, ?it all change up.? In this second volume of personal memories collected by Hilton Head journalist Fran Heyward Marscher, area old-timers tell of the adventures, the industry and the heart of the Lowcountry itself. Before the golf courses and resorts, the residents of Beaufort and Jasper Counties often scraped to make a living, but they left behind stories of enduring devotion and perseverance. Keeping lighthouses on the coast, developing a method for catching crabs with only sticks and hunting quail in Hilton Head are only a few of the tales preserved by local old-timers from the early days of the twentieth century to the times of economic transition after World War II. In ice cream and butter beans, picking oysters and exploring the beach, these memories of the Lowcountry will last for generations.

It is widely believed that central banks have grown (the Bank of England) or were established (the Federal Reserve) to pursue the twin objectives of monetary and price stability. But why should they? Central bankers are people, too, whose behavior is presumably determined, like the rest of us, by their incentives and the information available to them. The author explores this question. Two sets of data confirm the reservations. Central banks have often worsened, even initiated, monetary instabilities by bailing out the risk-takers and their effects on prices, which depending on the quantities of money created by central banks, have often been catastrophic. The evidence suggests that central bankers have really been in business to support the politically powerful upon whose favors they depend, particularly high-spending governments and needy financial institutions. The book consists of several examples of this behavior and its consistency during wars and financial crises in the UK and US over the course of the last two centuries. Professors and students of finance will find A Comparative History of Central Bank Behavior to be a compelling and thoughtful exploration of how central banks have historically responded to and influenced financial markets.

A high-spirited, eye-opening, appetite-whetting culinary travel adventure that tells the story of the last hundred years of Russian power through food, by an award-winning Polish journalist who’s been praised by both Timothy Snyder and Bill Buford.

In the gonzo spirit of Anthony Bourdain and Hunter S. Thompson, Witold Szabłowski has tracked down—and broken bread with—people whose stories of working in Kremlin kitchens impart a surprising flavor to our understanding of one of the world’s superpowers.

In revealing what Tsar Nicholas II’s and Lenin’s favorite meals were, why Stalin’s cook taught Gorbachev’s cook to sing to his dough, how Stalin had a food tester while he was starving the Ukrainians during the Great Famine, what the recipe was for the first soup flown into outer space, why Brezhnev hated caviar, what was served to the Soviet Union’s leaders at the very moment they decided the USSR should cease to exist, and whether Putin’s grandfather really did cook for Lenin and Stalin, Szabłowski has written a fascinating oral history—complete with recipes and photos—of Russia’s evolution from culinary indifference to decadence, famine to feasts, and of the Kremlin’s Olympics-style preoccupation with food as an expression of the country’s global standing.

Traveling across Stalin’s Georgia, the war fronts of Afghanistan, the nuclear wastelands of Chornobyl, and even to a besieged steelworks plant in Mariupol—often with one-of-a-kind access to locales forbidden to foreign eyes, and with a rousing sense of adventure and an inimitable ability to get people to spill the tea—he shows that a century after the revolution, Russia still uses food as an instrument of war and feeds its people on propaganda.

Union Pacific Railroad Heritage covers the history of this amazing railroad that was founded in 1862 and completed the United States first transcontinental railroad in 1869. With the need to develop more powerful steam locomotives to handle the railroad's steep gradients, the Union Pacific Railroad designed the 4-12-2 locomotive, 4-6-6-4 Challenger which influenced development of the 4-8-8-4 Big Boy, followed by the 6,600-horsepower Centennial diesel locomotive, and 8,500-horsepower gas turbine electric locomotive. The Union Pacific Railroad operated well-maintained passenger trains including City of San Francisco, City of Los Angeles, City of Portland, and City of Denver until May 1, 1971, when AMTRAK took over United States intercity passenger service.

Louis Botha was ’n briljante Boeregeneraal wie se taktiese vernuf en intuïtiewe aanslag vir etlike oorwinnings oor die Britse magte in die Anglo-Boereoorlog gesorg het. Maar dit was sy enigmatiese karakter en vaste oortuiging om te hou by wat hy geglo het reg was, wat hom as ’n leier van die Boerevolk bevestig het.

Richard Steyn gee op meesterlike wyse insae in die lewe van hierdie grootse Suid-Afrikaanse krygsman en staatsman. Hy beskryf verhelderend hoe Botha saam met sy hegte vriend, Jan Smuts, die vier Suid-Afrikaanse kolonies na Uniewording in 1910 gelei het waarna Botha as die eerste eerste minister van die Unie aangewys is.

Gedurende die Eerste Wêreldoorlog was Botha aan die voorpunt van die Suid-Afrikaanse magte se suksesvolle inval van Duits-Suidwes-Afrika. Tog is hy deur talle Afrikaners verkwalik vir sy steun aan Brittanje, en die Afrikaner-rebellie van 1914, waartydens hy teen voormalige makkers moes optree, het sy hart gebreek.

Botha se groothartig en vrygewige omgang met mense – van Vereeniging tot Versailles – het hom bo sy tydgenote laat uitstaan.