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Books > History > World history
On 2 September 1944, a German Wehrmacht Liaison Officer was
captured by the Russians in Bucharest. His name was
Lieutenant-Colonel Heinz-Helmut von Hinckeldey and he was to remain
a "war convict" of the Soviets until 1955. For 11 years,
Heinz-Helmut von Hinckeldey had to endure the deprivation - both
physical and psychological - of imprisonment; the filth and squalor
of the cells, in which he was kept; the agony of isolation and
repeated self-examination; and the pain of ignorance, of not
knowing if his motherland (Germany) still existed or whether those
he loved, ever realized that he was alive. The personal Story that,
like countless others, would never have been told, had it not been
for the admiration and fascination built up over time by the
Author, Charles Wood
South Carolina's Indian-American governor Nikki Haley recently
dismissed one of her principal advisors when his membership to the
ultra-conservative Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) came to
light. Among the CCC's many concerns is intermarriage and race
mixing. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 2001 the
CCC website included a message that read "God is the one who
divided mankind into different races.... Mixing the races is
rebelliousness against God. " Beyond the irony of a CCC member
working for an Indian-American, the episode reveals America's
continuing struggle with race, racial integration, and race mixing.
The Color Factor shows that the emergent twenty-first-century
recognition of race mixing and the relative advantages of
light-skinned, mixed-race people represents a "back to the future "
moment--a re-emergence of one salient feature of race in America
that dates to its founding. Each chapter addresses from a
historical perspective a topic in the current literature on
mixed-race and color. The approach is economic and empirical, but
the text is accessible to social scientists more generally. The
historical evidence concludes that we will not really understand
race until we understand how American attitudes toward race were
shaped by race mixing.
In May 2022 Bradford was awarded the honour of being UK City of
Culture 2025. Bradford is one of the most fascinating places in the
country. This history provides a unique reference of what Bradford
has already achieved and how it can now build on that foundation.
It grew in the 19th century from a small market town to one of the
UK's largest cities. It built its new wealth on factory production
of woollen goods, a classic case study of the Industrial
Revolution. This book is no conventional narrative of Bradford's
history. It celebrates each day in the year with some important
story from 1212 to 2020 - the impact of a strong-minded or talented
individual, a critical event of success or disaster, or an
important moment in the development of the city, its buildings or
its institutions. Bradford has experienced good and bad times,
periods of growth, decline and regeneration, and several waves of
immigration. Often rising above adversity and strife, many
individuals have made outstanding contributions to the city and the
nation. They feature businessmen such as Sir Titus Salt and Samuel
Lister, who made large fortunes through hard work and innovation,
and creative giants with international reputations such as JB
Priestley and David Hockney. Many mill-owners became very wealthy,
but many more workers suffered from poverty and ill-health. Not for
nothing did Friedrich Engels describe Bradford as a 'stinking hole'
or TS Eliot refer to silk hats on Bradford millionaires in his most
famous poem. The stories cover a wide range of topics - industry,
commerce, politics, arts, leisure, sport, education, health etc.
They include social issues such as the extreme poverty and squalor
in the 19th century and women's rights and multi-culturalism in the
20th. The accent, however, is on the positive - the unusual, the
brave, the eccentric and the amazing. Never before have such
stories about everyday life in and around Bradford across the
centuries been brought together in one volume. Martin Greenwood has
built a remarkable kaleidoscope of life in his home city from
medieval times to the current day.
Through reconstruction of oral testimony, folk stories and poetry,
the true history of Hausa women and their reception of Islam's
vision of Muslim in Western Africa have been uncovered. Mary Wren
Bivins is the first author to locate and examine the oral texts of
the 19th century Hausa women and challenge the written
documentation of the Sokoto Caliphate. The personal narratives and
folk stories reveal the importance of illiterate, non-elite women
to the history of jihad and the assimilation of normative Islam in
rural Hausaland. The captivating lives of the Hausa are captured,
shedding light on their ordinary existence as wives, mothers, and
providers for their family on the eve of European colonial
conquest. From European observations to stories of marriage, each
entry provides a personal account of the Hausa women's encounters
with Islamic reform to the center of an emerging Muslim Hausa
identity. Each entry focuses on: BLFemale historiography BLThe
importance of oral history BLNew methodoligical approaches to the
oral culture of popular Islam BLThe raw voice of Hausa women. The
comprehensive history is easy to read and touches on an era that no
other scholar has dissected.
The nineteenth-century middle-class ideal of the married woman was
of a chaste and diligent wife focused on being a loving mother,
with few needs or rights of her own. The modern woman, by contrast,
was partner to a new model of marriage, one in which she and her
husband formed a relationship based on greater sexual and
psychological equality. In Making Marriage Modern, Christina
Simmons narrates the development of this new companionate marriage
ideal, which took hold in the early twentieth century and prevailed
in American society by the 1940s.
The first challenges to public reticence to discuss sexual
relations between husbands and wives came from social hygiene
reformers, who advocated for a scientific but conservative sex
education to combat prostitution and venereal disease. A more
radical group of feminists, anarchists, and bohemians opposed the
Victorian model of marriage and even the institution of marriage.
Birth control advocates such as Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger
openly championed women's rights to acquire and use effective
contraception. The "companionate marriage" emerged from these
efforts. This marital ideal was characterized by greater emotional
and sexuality intimacy for both men and women, use of birth control
to create smaller families, and destigmatization of divorce in
cases of failed unions. Simmons examines what she calls the
"flapper" marriage, in which free-spirited young wives enjoyed the
early years of marriage, postponing children and domesticity. She
looks at the feminist marriage in which women imagined greater
equality between the sexes in domestic and paid work and sex. And
she explores the African American "partnership marriage," which
often included wives' employment and drew more heavily on the
involvement of the community and extended family. Finally, she
traces how these modern ideals of marriage were promoted in sexual
advice literature and marriage manuals of the period.
Though male dominance persisted in companionate marriages,
Christina Simmons shows how they called for greater independence
and satisfaction for women and a new female heterosexuality. By
raising women's expectations of marriage, the companionate ideal
also contained within it the seeds of second-wave feminists'
demands for transforming the institution into one of true equality
between the sexes.
a In late 2019 early 2020 word was coming out of Wuhan, China of a
highly infectious virus being detected in the population, which
sparked concern for what was about to become a global pandemic.
Meanwhile in typically British fashion the general public started
stockpiling pasta and toilet rollsa |why I have no idea! But it did
prompt me to pick up my drawing pencil and sketch the first Corona
cartoon of 2 dinosaurs stockpiling loo rolls while the meteorite
plummeted to earth! Since that first toon I have drawn (and am
still drawing) an account of a |.all the stupidity, heroics,
tragedy, political and medical successes and failures, and the
ludicrous nature, at times, of the human conditiona |..and a |.era
|.Trump and Boris! A diary, a record, a chronicle, if you like, of
what we all went through on our continuing quest to defeat the
virus and get back to relative normalitya |a |with shelves full of
pasta and toilet rolla |. Sometimes brutal sometimes thought
provoking but, I hope, always amusing this is a book to keep and
look back ona |. and perhaps to let your children and grandchildren
read as one persona s view of life in the times of Covid. It was my
way of keeping myself sane and as it turned out it helped many of
my friends who in turn supported the daily Facebook toons. Read a
The Corona Chroniclesa and think of those who surviveda |.and sadly
those who didna ta |a |this book and ita s story belongs to all of
us and serves as cautionary tale for the futurea
When American troops arrived in Paris to help maintain order at the
end of the Second World War they were, at first, received by the
local population with a sense of euphoria. However, the French soon
began to resent the Americans for their display of wealth and
brashness, while the US soldiers found the French and their habits
irritating and incomprehensible. To bridge the cultural divide, the
American generals came up with an innovative solution. They
commissioned a surprisingly candid book which collated the GIs'
'gripes' and reproduced them with answers aimed at promoting
understanding of the French and their country. The 'gripes' reveal
much about American preconceptions: 'The French drink too much',
'French women are immoral', 'The French drive like lunatics ', 'The
French don't bathe', 'The French aren't friendly' are just some of
the many complaints. Putting the record straight, the answers cover
topics as diverse as night-clubs, fashion, agriculture and
sanitation. They also offer an unusual insight into the reality of
daily life immediately after the war, evoking the shortage of food
and supplies, the acute poverty and the scale of the casualties and
destruction suffered by France during six years of conflict.
Illustrated with delightfully evocative cartoons and written in a
direct, colloquial style, this gem from 1945 is by turns amusing,
shocking and thought-provoking in its valiant stand against
prejudice and stereotype.
Fourteenth-century Japan witnessed a fundamental political and
intellectual conflict about the nature of power and society, a
conflict that was expressed through the rituals and institutions of
two rival courts. Rather than understanding the collapse of Japan's
first warrior government (the Kamakura bakufu) and the onset of a
chaotic period of civil war as the manipulation of rival courts by
powerful warrior factions, this study argues that the crucial
ideological and intellectual conflict of the fourteenth century was
between the conservative forces of ritual precedent and the ritual
determinists steeped in Shingon Buddhism. Members of the monastic
nobility who came to dominate the court used the language of
Buddhist ritual, including incantations (mantras), gestures
(mudras), and "cosmograms" (mandalas projected onto the geography
of Japan) to uphold their bids for power. Sacred places that were
ritual centers became the targets of military capture precisely
because they were ritual centers. Ritual was not simply symbolic;
rather, ritual became the orchestration, or actual dynamic, of
power in itself. This study undermines the conventional wisdom that
Zen ideals linked to the samurai were responsible for the manner in
which power was conceptualized in medieval Japan, and instead
argues that Shingon ritual specialists prolonged the conflict and
enforced the new notion that loyal service trumped the merit of
those who simply requested compensation for their acts. Ultimately,
Shingon mimetic ideals enhanced warrior power and enabled Shogun
Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, rather than the reigning emperor, to assert
sovereign authority in Japan.
Timothy Snyder opens a new path in the understanding of modern
nationalism and twentieth-century socialism by presenting the often
overlooked life of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, an important Polish
thinker at the beginning of the twentieth century. During his brief
life in Poland, Paris, and Vienna, Kelles-Krauz influenced or
infuriated most of the leaders of the various socialist movements
of Central Europe and France. His central ideas ultimately were not
accepted by the socialist mainstream at the time of his death.
However, a century later, we see that they anticipated late
twentieth-century understanding on the importance of nationalism as
a social force and the parameters of socialism in political theory
and praxis. Kelles-Krauz was one of the only theoreticians of his
age to advocate Jewish national rights as being equivalent to, for
example, Polish national rights, and he correctly saw the struggle
for national sovereignty as being central to future events in
Europe. This was the first major monograph in English devoted to
Kelles-Krauz, and it includes maps and personal photographs of
Kelles-Krauz, his colleagues, and his family.
In May 2022 Bradford was awarded the honour of being UK City of
Culture 2025. Bradford is one of the most fascinating places in the
country. This history provides a unique reference of what Bradford
has already achieved and how it can now build on that foundation.
It grew in the 19th century from a small market town to one of the
UK's largest cities. It built its new wealth on factory production
of woollen goods, a classic case study of the Industrial
Revolution. This book is no conventional narrative of Bradford's
history. It celebrates each day in the year with some important
story from 1212 to 2020 - the impact of a strong-minded or talented
individual, a critical event of success or disaster, or an
important moment in the development of the city, its buildings or
its institutions. Bradford has experienced good and bad times,
periods of growth, decline and regeneration, and several waves of
immigration. Often rising above adversity and strife, many
individuals have made outstanding contributions to the city and the
nation. They feature businessmen such as Sir Titus Salt and Samuel
Lister, who made large fortunes through hard work and innovation,
and creative giants with international reputations such as JB
Priestley and David Hockney. Many mill-owners became very wealthy,
but many more workers suffered from poverty and ill-health. Not for
nothing did Friedrich Engels describe Bradford as a 'stinking hole'
or TS Eliot refer to silk hats on Bradford millionaires in his most
famous poem. The stories cover a wide range of topics - industry,
commerce, politics, arts, leisure, sport, education, health etc.
They include social issues such as the extreme poverty and squalor
in the 19th century and women's rights and multi-culturalism in the
20th. The accent, however, is on the positive - the unusual, the
brave, the eccentric and the amazing. Never before have such
stories about everyday life in and around Bradford across the
centuries been brought together in one volume. Martin Greenwood has
built a remarkable kaleidoscope of life in his home city from
medieval times to the current day.
A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year A riveting account of
a forgotten holocaust: the slaughter of over one hundred thousand
Ukrainian Jews in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. In the
Midst of Civilized Europe repositions the pogroms as a defining
moment of the twentieth century. 'Exhaustive, clearly written,
deeply researched' - The Times 'A meticulous, original and deeply
affecting historical account' - Philippe Sands, author of East West
Street Between 1918 and 1921, over a hundred thousand Jews were
murdered in Ukraine by peasants, townsmen, and soldiers who blamed
the Jews for the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. In hundreds of
separate incidents, ordinary people robbed their Jewish neighbors
with impunity, burned down their houses, ripped apart their Torah
scrolls, sexually assaulted them, and killed them. Largely
forgotten today, these pogroms - ethnic riots - dominated headlines
and international affairs in their time. Aid workers warned that
six million Jews were in danger of complete extermination. Twenty
years later, these dire predictions would come true. Drawing upon
long-neglected archival materials, including thousands of newly
discovered witness testimonies, trial records, and official orders,
acclaimed historian Jeffrey Veidlinger shows for the first time how
this wave of genocidal violence created the conditions for the
Holocaust. Through stories of survivors, perpetrators, aid workers,
and governmental officials, he explains how so many different
groups of people came to the same conclusion: that killing Jews was
an acceptable response to their various problems.
The tour guide is designed specifically for the enthusiast wanting
to explore and discover more about Israel's military history. But
instead of simply reading about historical events this guide takes
the traveller to the battle sites themselves throughout Israel. The
guide is in chronological order starting with the First World War
and taking you through selective events in history up to 2006. From
a geographical perspective the tour will take you from southern
Israel through the Jordan Valley and on to the Golan Heights in the
north by the Syrian and Lebanese border.
'A compelling, beautifully written story of resilience, friendship
and survival.' Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz
The thrilling story of how nine young women, captured by the Nazis
for being part of the Resistance, launched a breathtakingly bold
escape and found their way home. As the Second World War raged
across Europe, and the Nazi regime tightened its reign of horror
and oppression, nine women, some still in their teens, joined the
French and Dutch Resistance. Caught out in heroic acts against the
brutal occupiers, they were each tortured and sent east into
Greater Germany to a concentration camp, where they formed a
powerful friendship. In 1945, as the war turned against Hitler,
they were forced on a Death March, facing starvation and almost
certain death. Determined to survive, they made a bid for freedom,
and so began one of the most breathtaking tales of escape and
resilience of the Second World War. The author is the great-niece
of one of the nine, and she interweaves their gripping flight
across war-torn Europe with her own detective work, uncovering the
heart-stopping escape and survival of these heroes who fought
fearlessly against Nazi Germany and lived to tell the tale.
--------- 'A truly extraordinary tale, beautifully written, one
that chills and excites, [A] work of rare passion, power and
principle' Philippe Sands, author of East-West Street and The
Ratline 'Utterly gripping' Anna Sebba author of Les Parisiennes
'The Nine is poignant, powerful, and shattering, distilling the
horror of the Holocaust through the lens of nine unforgettable
women...' Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose
Code and The Alice Network
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