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Books > History > History of specific subjects > Local history
_______________ WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK _______________ 'A remarkable achievement' - Sunday Times 'A classic, to my mind, of the finest documentary writing' - John le Carre 'Absolutely riveting' - Sarah Waters, Guardian _______________ On a summer's morning in 1860, the Kent family awakes in their elegant Wiltshire home to a terrible discovery; their youngest son has been brutally murdered. When celebrated detective Jack Whicher is summoned from Scotland Yard he faces the unenviable task of identifying the killer - when the grieving family are the suspects. The original Victorian whodunnit, the murder and its investigation provoked national hysteria at the thought of what might be festering behind the locked doors of respectable homes - scheming servants, rebellious children, insanity, jealousy, loneliness and loathing. _______________ 'Nothing less than a masterpiece' - Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday 'Terrific' - Ian Rankin 'A triumph' - Observer 'Gripping, unputdownable' - Sunday Telegraph 'A terrific read in the Wilkie Collins tradition' - Susan Hill 'The best whodunnit of the year - and it's all true ... Agatha Christie, eat your heart out' - Sebastian Shakespeare, Tatler
A book about a tiny island with a huge history, from the New York Times bestselling author of Valiant Ambition and In the Hurricane's Eye. "For everyone who loves Nantucket Island this is the indispensable book." -Russell Baker In his first book of history, Nathaniel Philbrick reveals the people and the stories behind what was once the whaling capital of the world. Beyond its charm, quaint local traditions, and whaling yarns, Philbrick explores the origins of Nantucket in this comprehensive history. From the English settlers who thought they were purchasing a "Native American ghost town" but actually found a fully realized society, through the rise and fall of the then thriving whaling industry, the story of Nantucket is a truly unique chapter of American history.
A reminiscence of Lake Minnesota in the 1920s.
The Isle of Wight went to war in August 1914 along with the rest of Britain. German waiters were arrested. The tourist trade slumped. Foreigners were denounced and lads from all walks of life flocked to the Colours. Then came privations, losses, hospitals full of the sick and crippled. After conscription was brought in tribunals were set up to catch draft-dodgers. Thousands of pounds were raised for the war effort and lectures, rallies and the local press all did their bit to keep morale high. There are no official figures for the Island's war dead, but 300 of the Isle of Wight Rifles fell on one day at Gallipoli in August 1915. The original plan to commemorate the dead was to erect a cross in Winchester but that changed so that every Island parish had a memorial of its own. Ex-Islanders from as far away as Australia and Canada volunteered to fight for king and country in this war to end all wars.
Anthony Poulton-Smith takes the reader on a fascinating A-Z tour of the haunted hotspots of Worcestershire. Contained within the pages of this book are strange tales of spectral sightings, active poltergeists, and restless spirits appearing in streets, inns, churches, estates, public buildings, and private homes across the area. They include tales from Worcester, Bewdley, Droitwich, Bromsgrove, Tenbury Wells, and Stourport-on-Severn. This new collection of stories, a product of both historical accounts and numerous interviews conducted with local witnesses, is sure to appeal to all those intrigued by Worcestershire's haunted heritage.
This fascinating selection of photographs illustrates the extraordinary transformation that has taken place in Kingston-upon-Thames over the years. The book offers an insight into the daily lives and living conditions of local people and gives the reader glimpses of familiar places during this century of unprecedented change. Many aspects of Kingston's recent history are covered, famous occasions and individuals are remembered and the impact of national and international events is witnessed. Drawing on detailed local knowledge of the community, and illustrated with a wealth of photographs, this book recalls what Kingston-upon-Thames has lost in terms of buildings, traditions and ways of life. It also acknowledges the regeneration that has taken place and celebrates the character and energy of local people as they move through the first years of this new century. This latest edition of the book has been fully updated with new contemporary photography and revised captions.
The London Borough of Islington stretches from Hornsey Lane and Highgate Hill in the north to the edge of the City of London. Created in 1964, the new borough brought together the old boroughs of Islington and Finsbury. The period of history covered by this collection of photographs begins in the 1860s and 1870s. We see here a very different world from our own, roads busy with horse-buses, motor-buses, trains and the occasional new-fangled motor-car. Children play in the streets as well as the parks. Buildings of a former age are still to be seen and architecture is on a human scale. From the 1860s and 1870s much progress was made in education and public health. Overcrowded courts and rookeries were swept away, new housing built, water supplies and drainage laid on. Medical services gradually improved. The story was not all hopeful. Islington suffered severe unemployment and poverty early this century. The Second World War brought widespread devastation. Post-war rebuilding changed the local landscape and improved living conditions. This book takes us on a journey through Islington's past, sometimes quite recognizable, sometimes unfamiliar, but in a time of rapid change, it is all the more interesting to look at what has gone before.
A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. 'Francis Pryor brings the magic of the Fens to life in a deeply personal and utterly enthralling way' TONY ROBINSON. 'Pryor feels the land rather than simply knowing it' GUARDIAN. Inland from the Wash, on England's eastern cost, crisscrossed by substantial rivers and punctuated by soaring church spires, are the low-lying, marshy and mysterious Fens. Formed by marine and freshwater flooding, and historically wealthy owing to the fertility of their soils, the Fens of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire are one of the most distinctive, neglected and extraordinary regions of England. Francis Pryor has the most intimate of connections with this landscape. For some forty years he has dug its soils as a working archaeologist - making ground-breaking discoveries about the nature of prehistoric settlement in the area - and raising sheep in the flower-growing country between Spalding and Wisbech. In The Fens, he counterpoints the history of the Fenland landscape and its transformation - from Bronze age field systems to Iron Age hillforts; from the rise of prosperous towns such as King's Lynn, Ely and Cambridge to the ambitious drainage projects that created the Old and New Bedford Rivers - with the story of his own discovery of it as an archaeologist. Affectionate, richly informative and deftly executed, The Fens weaves together strands of archaeology, history and personal experience into a satisfying narrative portrait of a complex and threatened landscape.
Explore the wonders that the world forgot with award-winning travel writer Oliver Smith - from breathtaking buildings with a dark past to decaying reminders of more troubled times The globe is littered with forgotten monuments, their beauty matched only by the secrets of their past. A glorious palace lies abandoned by a fallen dictator. A grand monument to communism sits forgotten atop a mountain. Two never-launched space shuttles slowly crumble, left to rot in the middle of the desert. Explore these and many more of the world's lost wonders in this atlas like no other. With remarkable stories, bespoke maps and stunning photography of fifty forsaken sites, Atlas of Abandoned Places travels the world beneath the surface; the sites with stories to tell, the ones you won't find in any guidebook. Award-winning travel writer Oliver Smith is your guide on a long-lost path, shining a light on the places that the world forgot.
Existential Edinburgh is a personal journey through a city that has for centuries inspired many. An exploration, an evocation of the city's past and present it weaves together personal experience, memory and history. It takes the reader beyond the city's historic centre, looking out to surrounding areas that are inseparable from Edinburgh's story. There are companions on this journey, well-known figures from the past and the not so well-known.
Acknowledged as a classic of mountain writing, this book takes you into the bothies, howffs and dosses on the Scottish hills as Fishgut Mac, Desperate Dan and Stumpy the Big Yin stalk hill and public house, evading gamekeepers and Royalty.
George Darling Watt was the first convert of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints baptized in the British Isles. He emigrated to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1842. He returned to the British Isles in 1846 as a missionary, accompanied by his wife and young son. He remained there until 1851, when he led a group of emigrant converts to Salt Lake City, Utah. Watt recorded his journey from Liverpool to Chimney Rock in Pitman shorthand. Remarkably, his journal wasn't discovered until 2001-and is transcribed and appearing for the first time in this book. Watt's journal provides an important glimpse into the transatlantic nature of Latter-day Saint migration to Salt Lake City. In 1850 there were more Latter-day Saints in England than in the United States, but by 1890 more than eighty-five thousand converts had crossed the Atlantic and made their way to Salt Lake City. Watt's 1851 journal opens a window into those overseas, riverine, and overland journeys. His spirited accounts provide wide-ranging details about the births, marriages, deaths, Sunday sermons, interpersonal relations, weather, and food and water shortages of the journey, as well as the many logistical complexities.
This folded map (890mm x 1000mm when unfolded) is an ideal souvenir for tourists to Gloucestershire and also a valuable reference resource for local and family history research. It includes 4 Historic maps of Gloucestershire, John Speed's County Map of Gloucestershire 1611, Johan Blaeu's County Map of Gloucestershire 1648,Thomas Moule's County Map of Gloucestershire 1836 and The City of Gloucester 1805 by Cole and Roper. All the maps have been meticulously re-produced from antique originals and printed on 90 gsm "Progeo" paper which was specially developed as a map paper. It has high opacity to help reduce show through and a cross grain giving it greater durability to as the map is being folded.
Kent has been the gateway to Britain since prehistoric man first set foot on our soil. Its people have repelled invaders including Julius Caesar, the Vikings and William the Conqueror, while welcoming migrants from countries such as France, Austria and the Netherlands. In turn, men from Kent played a part in invading and conquering such faraway places as Canada and the USA, leaving their stamp on the world at large. This volume is a tribute to those who have shaped our society and the world around us: from the long barrow at Trottescliffe and the medieval abbey of St Augustine to the Channel Tunnel and Bluewater Shopping Centre, it is plain to see that the landscape around us is itself a monument to those who went before.
The cultural diversity of America is often summed up by way of a different metaphors: Melting Pot, Patchwork, Quilt, Mosaic--none of which capture the symbiotics of the city. Few neighborhoods personify the diversity these terms connote more than New York City's Lower East Side. This storied urban landscape, today a vibrant mix of avant garde artists and street culture, was home, in the 1910s, to the Wobblies and served, forty years later, as an inspiration for Allen Ginsberg's epic Howl. More recently, it has launched the career of such bands as the B-52s and been the site of one of New York's worst urban riots. In this diverse neighborhood, immigrant groups from all over the world touched down on American soild for the first time and established roots that remain to this day: Chinese immigrants, Italians, and East European Jews at the turn of the century and Puerto Ricans in the 1950s. Over the last hundred years, older communities were transformed and new ones emerged. Chinatown and Little Italy, once solely immigrant centers, began to attract tourists. In the 1960s, radical young whites fled an expensive, bourgeois lifestyle for the urban wilderness of the Lower East Side. Throughout its long and complex history, the Lower East Side has thus come to represent both the compulsion to assimilate American culture, and the drive to rebel against it. Mario Maffi here presents us with a captivating picture of the Lower East Side from the unique perspective of an outsider. The product of a decade of research, "Gateway to the Promised Land" will appeal to cultural historians, urban, and American historians, and anyone concerned with the challenges America, as an increasinglymulticultural society, faces.
While many of Halifax's historic buildings are still present today, this Minster town has developed significantly over the last 150 years. Since the Victorian period, some scenes have altered beyond all recognition, and the changes to transport, from horse and carts to motorisation, have also affected the town's landscape. Halifax History Tour follows a trail through the town, explaining the history behind its well-known landmarks. Along the way, you will discover the impact of the Bull Green development scheme and the former uses of some of Halifax's finest buildings.
This folded map (890mm x 1000mm when unfolded) is an ideal souvenir for tourists to the County of Kent and also a valuable reference resource for local and family history research. It includes 4 Historic Maps of Kent. John Speed's County Map of Kent1611, Johan Blaeu's County Map of Kent 1648, Thomas Moule's County Map of Kent 1836 and the detailed Plan of Canterbury by Cole and Roper 1806 All the maps have been meticulously re-produced from antique originals and printed on 90 gsm "Progeo" paper which was specially developed as a map paper. It has high opacity to help reduce show through and a cross grain giving it greater durability to as the map is being folded.
During the Second World War Birmingham suffered 365 air raid alerts and 77 actual air raids. These raids took place between the 8th August 1940 and the 23rd April 1943. There were over 9,000 casualties of whom 2,241 were killed. This book contains the first hand accounts of some of those who survived. The Memorial shown on the front cover "The Tree of Life" by Lorenzo Quinn is dedicated to the memory of all victims of the Blitz on Birmingham. The memorial was donated to the City of Birmingham by the Halcyon Gallery on behalf of its founders Racna and Lionel Green, in association with Birmingham City Council and Birmingham Air Raids Remembrance Association.
The Peak District National Park is noted for more than just its scenery. It also has a wealth of real ale pubs, many of which lie above 1000 feet (304 metres). It's these pubs that feature in this book. What better way to visit them than on foot? All these pubs welcome walkers, many do food, have accommodation and real ale from local independent breweries. The book describes 30 walks and also has lots of information about the areas through which the various routes pass. The walks vary in length from a mere 21/2 miles to 12A miles, so there's something suitable for everyone here. The walks generally start from the pub and with certain rare exceptions, can be reached by public transport, so you can leave your car at home and savour the liquid products on offer.
"A rip-roaring read."-Nature Fresh out of college in the 1960s, Mary Guinan aspired to be an astronaut-until she learned that NASA's astronaut program wasn't recruiting women. Instead, Guinan went to medical school and became a disease detective with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Epidemic Intelligence Service. Selected to join India's Smallpox Eradication program, Guinan traveled to remote villages to isolate smallpox cases and then vaccinate all uninfected persons within a ten-mile radius. By May 1975, the World Health Organization declared Uttar Pradesh smallpox-free. During her barrier-breaking career, Dr. Guinan met arms-seeking Afghan insurgents in Pakistan and got caught in the crossfire between religious groups in Lebanon. She was one of the first medical detectives on the ground in San Francisco at the start of the AIDS crisis. And she served as an expert witness in a landmark decision that still protects HIV patients from workplace discrimination. Randy Shilts's best-selling book on the epidemic, And the Band Played On, features her AIDS work, as does the HBO movie of the same name. In Adventures of a Female Medical Detective, Guinan weaves together twelve vivid stories of her life in medicine, describing her individual experiences in controlling outbreaks, researching new diseases, and caring for patients the world over. Occasionally heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious, Guinan's account of her pathbreaking career will inspire public health students and future medical detectives-and give all readers insight into that part of the government exclusively devoted to protecting their health.
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