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Books > History > History of specific subjects > Local history
For almost three hundred years, excavations have been carried out
in Roman Bath. At first these were rare and sporadic and
archaeological finds were made by chance. Even fewer were reported.
But from the 1860s, deliberate investigations were made and
increasingly professional methods employed. The Roman Baths were
laid open to view, but little was published. From the 1950s,
interest accelerated, professionals and amateurs collaborated, and
there was never a decade in which some new discovery was not made.
The first popular but authoritative presentation of this work was
made in 1971 and updated several times. However, from the 1990s to
the present there has been some sort of archaeological
investigation almost every year. This has thrown much new and
unexpected light on the town of Aquae Sulis and its citizens. In
this book, Peter Davenport, having been involved in most of the
archaeological work in Bath since 1980, attempts to tell the story
of Roman Bath: the latest interim report on the 'Three Hundred Year
Dig'.
A quirky collection of true stories from the stranger side of God's
Own Country, including vampires, tigers and aliens. Welcome to the
weird and wonderful world of Yorkshire, or as it is sometimes
beautifully referred to, God's Own County. Though this isn't the
usual side of the county the tourists, travellers and residents
see. This is the real Yorkshire, the strange and twisted nooks and
crannies of the county's bizarre history - past, present and
future. Following on from the bestselling Portico Strangest titles
now comes a book devoted to one of England's most beautiful valley
regions. Located in the upper body of Britain's old man, Yorkshire
is a county with more strangeness than you can shake a Dale walking
stick at. Home of Robin Hood (he was born in Barnsdale), Guy
Fawkes, Dick Turpin and Dracula (Bram Stoker wrote part of the
vampire tale in a Whitby hotel!) and, some say, the birthplace of
modern civilization even began in Leeds! But you'll have to read
the book to find out why. Yorkshire's Strangest Tales is a treasure
trove of the hilarious, the odd and the baffling - an alternative
travel guide to some of the county's best-kept secrets. Read on, if
you dare! You have been warned.
Western Isles Folk Tales is a representative collection of stories
from the geographical span of the long chain of islands known as
the Outer Hebrides. Some are well-known tales and others have been
sought out by the author, but all are retold in the natural voice
of a local man. You will find premonitions, accounts of uncanny
events and mythical beings, such as the blue men of the stream who
test mariners venturing into the tidal currents around the Shiant
Islands. Also included are tales from islands now uninhabited, like
the archipelago of St Kilda, in contrast to the witty yarns from
bustling harbours. The author was the inaugural winner of the
Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship (1995) and his Acts of Trust
collaboration with visual artist Christine Morrison won the
multi-arts category in the first British Awards for Storytelling
Excellence (2012). Both author and illustrator live in Stornoway,
Isle of Lewis.
Zen and the Art of Local History is an engaging, interactive
conversation that conveys the exciting nature of local history.
Divided into six major themes the book covers the scope and breadth
of local history: * Being a Local Historian * Topics and Sources *
Staying Relevant * Getting it Right * Writing History * History
Organizations Each chapter features one of Carol Kammen's memorable
editorials from History News. Her editorial is a "call." Each is
followed by a response from one of more than five dozen prominent
players in state and local history. These Respondents include local
and public historians, archivists, volunteers, and history
professionals across the kaleidoscopic spectrum of local history.
Among this group are Katherine Kane, Robert "Bob" Richmond, Charlie
Bryan, and Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko. The result is a series of
dialogues on important topics in the field of local history. This
interactivity of these conversations makes Zen and the Art of Local
History a unique offering in the public history field.
Zen and the Art of Local History is an engaging, interactive
conversation that conveys the exciting nature of local history.
Divided into six major themes the book covers the scope and breadth
of local history: * Being a Local Historian * Topics and Sources *
Staying Relevant * Getting it Right * Writing History * History
Organizations Each chapter features one of Carol Kammen's memorable
editorials from History News. Her editorial is a "call." Each is
followed by a response from one of more than five dozen prominent
players in state and local history. These Respondents include local
and public historians, archivists, volunteers, and history
professionals across the kaleidoscopic spectrum of local history.
Among this group are Katherine Kane, Robert "Bob" Richmond, Charlie
Bryan, and Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko. The result is a series of
dialogues on important topics in the field of local history. This
interactivity of these conversations makes Zen and the Art of Local
History a unique offering in the public history field.
In 1914, the East London Federation of Suffragettes, led by Sylvia
Pankhurst, split from the WSPU. Sylvia's mother and sister,
Emmeline and Christabel, had encouraged her to give up her work
with the poor women of East London - but Sylvia refused. Besides
campaigning for women to have an equal right to vote from their
headquarters in Bow, the ELFS worked on a range of equality issues
which mattered to local women: they built a toy factory, providing
work and a living wage for local women; they opened a subsidized
canteen where women and children could get cheap, nutritious food;
and they launched a nursery school, a creche, and a mother-and-baby
clinic. The work of the Federation (and 'our Sylvia', as she was
fondly known by locals) deserves to be remembered, and this book,
filled with astonishing first-hand accounts, aims to bring this
amazing story to life.
Explore the magical green world of Lambeth Palace Garden, a hidden
jewel of London for more than 1,000 years. In this book, Head
Gardener Nick Stewart Smith takes the reader on a series of rambles
through the changing seasons, introducing some extraordinary trees
and plants along the way. Revealing some of the untold stories of
the ten-acre secret garden, this is a unique insight into a special
place. Nick explains how nature is at the heart of everything here,
the gardening approach allowing the green world inside the high
stone walls to be a haven for many kinds of wildlife, all
flourishing right in the midst of one of the world's busiest
cities.
Television, penicillin, the telephone, A Haverin' History of
Scotland. All of these have been created by a Scotsperson, although
not all will appear on a tea towel listing great Scottish
inventions.* Scotland is as old as any other country - maybe even
more so, judging by the state of the pavements. This means that it
has a lot of a history. A lot! Some of those whose epic deeds have
echoed down the centuries include William 'Braveheart' Wallace,
King Robert 'the Bruce' the Bruce and Queen Mary 'Queen of Scots'
Queen of Scots. Among many others, they all feature in this concise
and relatively cheap history of the country people all over the
world call Scotland. Because that is its name. Whether you know
your Scottish history, or you think the Lewis Chessmen were a 1960s
beat combo, A Haverin' History of Scotland is the unreliable
history book for you. *Does anyone still watch television?
Grand Teton National Park draws more than three million visitors
annually in search of wildlife, outdoor adventure, solitude, and
inspiration. This collection of writings showcases the park's
natural and human histories through stories of drama and beauty,
tragedy and triumph. Editor Robert Righter has selected thirty-five
contributors whose work takes readers from the Tetons' geological
origins to the time of Euro-American encroachment and the park's
politically tumultuous creation. Selections range from Laine Thom's
Shoshone legend of the Snake River and Owen Wister's essay 'Great
God! I've Just Killed a Bear,' to Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson's
humorous yet fearful account of crossing the Snake River, and
William Owen's first attempt to climb the Grand Teton.
Conservationists, naturalists, and environmentalists are also
represented: Terry Tempest Williams chronicles her multiyear
encounter with her 'Range of Memory,' and Olaus and Mardy Murie
recount the difficulties of 'park-making' in an often-hostile human
environment. Anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the park's
wild beauty and controversial past will want to read these stories
by people who lived it.
Fifteen years after its hardcover debut, the FSG Classics reissue
of the celebrated work of narrative nonfiction that won the
National Book Award and changed the American conversation about
race, with a new preface by the author
The Ball family hails from South Carolina--Charleston and
thereabouts. Their plantations were among the oldest and
longest-standing plantations in the South. Between 1698 and 1865,
close to four thousand black people were born into slavery under
the Balls or were bought by them. In "Slaves in the Family, "Edward
Ball recounts his efforts to track down and meet the descendants of
his family's slaves. Part historical narrative, part oral history,
part personal story of investigation and catharsis, "Slaves in the
Family" is, in the words of Pat Conroy, "a work of breathtaking
generosity and courage, a magnificent study of the complexity and
strangeness and beauty of the word 'family.'"
On 16 August 2012, the South African police shot dead thirty-four men and injured hundreds more, bringing to an end a week-long strike at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana. None of the murdered people posed a threat to any police officer. Existing studies of this nation-shaping and internationally significant event have often overlooked the experiences and perspectives of the striking miners themselves. Now, for the first time, the men’s lives – and deaths – are put at the centre of the story.
Placing the strike in the context of South Africa’s long history of racial and economic exclusion, explaining how the miners came to be in Marikana, how their lives were ordinarily lived and the substance of their complaints, Julian Brown shows how the strike developed from an initial gathering into a mass movement of more than 3,000 workers. Drawing on interviews with strikers and their families, he tells the stories of those who embarked on the strike, those who were killed, and the attempts of the families of the deceased to identify and bury their dead.
Brown also provides a comprehensive review of the subsequent Commission of Inquiry and points to the politics of solidarity with the Marikana miners that have emerged since.
During the Great Depression, California became a wellspring for
some of the era's most inventive and imaginative political
movements. In response to the global catastrophe, the multiracial
laboring populations who formed the basis of California's economy
gave rise to an oppositional culture that challenged the modes of
racialism, nationalism, and rationalism that had guided
modernization during preceding decades. In Rebel Imaginaries
Elizabeth E. Sine tells the story of that oppositional culture's
emergence, revealing how aggrieved Californians asserted political
visions that embraced difference, fostered a sense of shared
vulnerability, and underscored the interconnectedness and
interdependence of global struggles for human dignity. From the
Imperial Valley's agricultural fields to Hollywood, seemingly
disparate communities of African American, Native American,
Mexican, Filipinx, Asian, and White working-class people were
linked by their myriad struggles against Depression-era capitalism
and patterns of inequality and marginalization. In tracing the
diverse coalition of those involved in labor strikes, citizenship
and immigration reform, and articulating and imagining freedom
through artistic practice, Sine demonstrates that the era's social
movements were far more heterogeneous, multivalent, and contested
than previously understood.
During the Great Depression, California became a wellspring for
some of the era's most inventive and imaginative political
movements. In response to the global catastrophe, the multiracial
laboring populations who formed the basis of California's economy
gave rise to an oppositional culture that challenged the modes of
racialism, nationalism, and rationalism that had guided
modernization during preceding decades. In Rebel Imaginaries
Elizabeth E. Sine tells the story of that oppositional culture's
emergence, revealing how aggrieved Californians asserted political
visions that embraced difference, fostered a sense of shared
vulnerability, and underscored the interconnectedness and
interdependence of global struggles for human dignity. From the
Imperial Valley's agricultural fields to Hollywood, seemingly
disparate communities of African American, Native American,
Mexican, Filipinx, Asian, and White working-class people were
linked by their myriad struggles against Depression-era capitalism
and patterns of inequality and marginalization. In tracing the
diverse coalition of those involved in labor strikes, citizenship
and immigration reform, and articulating and imagining freedom
through artistic practice, Sine demonstrates that the era's social
movements were far more heterogeneous, multivalent, and contested
than previously understood.
This book is the product of many years’ research by Lodge, whose Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (1983) established him as a leading commentator on South African politics, past and present.
2021 will mark the centenary of the foundation of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) and today’s South African Communist Party (SACP, founded in 1953 after the proscription of the CPSA) will be extremely fortunate to have the milestone marked by a scholarly work of this calibre. Since 1994, many memoirs have been written by communists, and private archives have been donated to university and other collections. Significant official archives have been opened to scrutiny, particularly those of South Africa and the former Soviet Union. It is as if a notoriously secretive body has suddenly become confiding and confessional! While every chapter draws upon original material of this sort, such evidence is supported, amplified, illuminated and challenged by the scholarship of others: the breadth of secondary sources used by the author reflects what may well be an unrivalled familiarity with the scholarly literature on political organisations and resistance in twentieth century South Africa.
Lodge provides a richly detailed history of the Party’s vicissitudes and victories; individuals – their ideas, attitudes and activities – are sensitively located within their context; the text provides a fascinating sociology of the South African left over time. Lodge is adept at making explicit what the key questions and issues are for different periods; and he answers these with analyses and conclusions that are judicious, clearly stated, and meticulously argued.
Without doubt, this book will become a central text for students of communism in South Africa, of the Party’s links with Russia and the socialist bloc, and of the Communist Party’s changing relations with African nationalism – before, during and after three decades of exile.
In The Heart of Central New York: Stories of Historic Homer, NY
Martin A. Sweeney makes the past come alive through this collection
of articles from his column in The Homer News. Through his writing,
Sweeney offers readers a glimpse of the excitement he brought to
his classrooms by bringing to life the people, events, manners, and
mores of the past in a community that is the heart of Central New
York State. This compilation represents Sweeney's successful
efforts as a public historian in using the press as a tool for
generating interest in his community's unique historical
identity.With annotations and a touch of humor, this book
illustrates for current and emerging public historians how to
successfully engage a community in acknowledging their history
matters-that the fibers of "microhistory" contribute to the rich
tapestry that is county, regional, state, and national history.
The 1950s was a time of regeneration and change for Southampton.
For children growing up during this decade, life was changing fast.
They still made their own toys and earned their own pocket money,
but, on new television sets, Andy Pandy (1950) and Bill and Ben
(1952) delighted them. With rationing discontinued, confectionary
was on the menu again and, for children, Southampton life in the
1950s was sweet. If you saw a Laurel and Hardy performance at The
Gaumont Theatre, or made dens out of bombed-out buildings, then
you'll thoroughly enjoy this charming and nostalgic account of the
era.
Once an essential part of nautical navigation and commerce, the
world's lighthouses have become historical relics of days past,
their primary function now replaced by modern technology. Yet these
magnificent structures continue to fascinate us, not only for their
intrinsic beauty, but also as monuments to our shared history, and
as symbols of hope and salvation to those cast adrift on the stormy
seas of life. From the mid-eighteenth through the early twentieth
centuries, the waterways of coastal Georgia from the St. Marys
River in the south to the Savannah River in the north were an
integral part of the state's economy, vital to the trade in cotton,
rice, timber, naval stores, and other products shipped to ports in
America and around the world. Georgia's barrier islands are today
the site of five existing lighthouses, each with its own unique
style, history, and role in events over the past decades and
centuries. In addition, focusing on these beacons, Lighthouses of
the Georgia Coast reviews the basics of lighthouse design and
construction, the role, lore and legacy of lighthouse keepers, the
significance of lighthouses as strategic structures during the
turbulent days of the Civil War, and more. Richly illustrated with
both contemporary and historical photos, the reader or visitor will
gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of Georgia's
lighthouses and of similar structures on coasts and waterways
around the world.
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