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This book offers a fresh perspective on the reign of Alexander the Great. It re-examines Alexander’s military victories and personality, while also exploring the impact of his campaigns on the people he conquered. Alexander’s story, Stephen Harrison argues, is one that includes the vital roles that other figures played in historical events. By considering the social and intellectual currents of the last two decades, Harrison highlights how changing contemporary experiences shape historical interpretations. Moving beyond polarized debates about Alexander, he provides a nuanced discussion of Alexander’s achievements and impact. The book presents an Alexander for the twenty-first century, offering new insights into how and why historical interpretations of him have changed.

This deluxe hardback edition of The Egyptian Book of the Dead is exquisitely presented with opulent silk binding, full-colour illustrations and a decorative slipcase.The Egyptian Book of the Dead is an ancient collection of spells, prayers and incantations designed to guide the departed through the perils of the underworld, ultimately ensuring eternal life. Written as part of funeral rites, these scrolls were often left in the sarcophagus of the deceased and now offer fascinating insight into Egyptian culture. This beautifully illustrated edition contains images from the exquisite Papyrus of Ani, an ancient Egyptian scroll narrating the journey of Theban scribe Ani through the underworld. Its accompanying hieroglyphic text has been translated by acclaimed Egyptologist E.A Wallis Budge, and includes spells addressed to ferryman, gods and kings to aid Ani on his way to the afterlife.This silk-bound hardback contains magnificent illustrations from Persian manuscripts that complement the text and bring out its timeless beauty.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Silkbound Classics series brings together deluxe gift editions of literary classics, presented with luxurious silk binding, striking embossed cover designs and full-color illustrations.

Mysteries of the Ancient World examines some of the most bizarre, surprising and unexplained phenomena of the ancient world. Ranging from cold cases millennia in the making to the sudden, baffling disappearances of entire civilizations to the creation of mysterious monuments, it searches for the truth behind these remarkable stories. With a careful analysis of the various theories that have been used over the years to try and understand these curious occurrences, the author gets to the bottom of what really happened.This volume includes such fascinating cases as:• The mysteries surrounding the life and death of Tutankhamun• The strange underground city of Derinkuyu• The river of mercury lying beneath the pyramids of Teotihuacan• The coded messages of the Voynich manuscript• The disappearance of Rome''s 9th Legion

A critically acclaimed reckoning with the birth of women’s healthcare that illuminates the sacrifices of a young woman who changed the world only to be forgotten by it—until now.For more than a century, Dr. J. Marion Sims was hailed as the “father of modern gynecology.” He founded a hospital in New York City and had a profitable career treating gentry and royalty in Europe, becoming one of the world’s first celebrity surgeons. Statues were built in his honor, but he wasn’t the hero he had made himself appear to be. Sims’s greatest medical accolade was his so-called cure for obstetric fistula, which did forever alter the path of women’s health. But the road to that treatment was several years of experimental surgeries–without anesthesia–on a young enslaved woman known as Anarcha. One medical text after another hailed Anarcha as the embodiment of the pivotal role that Sims played in the history of surgery. Decades later, a groundswell of women objecting to Sims’s legacy celebrated Anarcha as the “mother of gynecology.” Little was known about the woman herself. The written record would have us believe Anarcha disappeared; she did not. Through tenacious research, J. C. Hallman has unearthed the first evidence of Anarcha’s life that did not come from Sims’s suspect reports. Hallman reveals that after helping to spark a patient-centered model of care that continues to improve women’s lives today, Anarcha lived on as a midwife, nurse, and “doctor woman.” Say Anarcha excavates history, deconstructing the biographical smoke screen of a surgeon who has falsely been enshrined as a medical pioneer and bringing forth a heroic Black woman to her rightful place at the center of the creation story of modern women’s health care.

While headline writers in the ETO were naturally focused on events in Normandy and the Bulge in the north, equally ferocious combats were taking place in southern France and Germany during 1944–45, which are now finally getting their due. The US 14th Armored Division—a late arrival to the theater—was thrust into intense combat almost the minute it arrived in Europe, as the Germans remained determined to defend their southern flank.Like other US formations, the 14th AD, after advancing through France against intermittent opposition, was hammered to a standstill at the Westwall in the fall of 1944. Nevertheless, it had gained experience, and when the Germans sought to turn the tide, with Operation Northwind, they found a hardened formation against them. This book explores in detail what happened in the month of January 1945 in the snowcovered Vosges Mountains, when the Wehrmacht''s attempt to destroy the Sixth Army Group failed. Northwind began in the mountains but was extended onto the plains of Alsace very near the Rhine River. A strategic withdrawal after a hellish ten days of fiery combat allowed the Allies to hold the line until a spring offensive. The dreadful cold and the conflagration of battle took a toll on both sides, but by now the 14th and the other American divisions felt the heat of battle in their hearts and knew what had to be done to defeat a wily enemy. But the Siegfried Line still loomed in front to American forces, and in the sector of the 14th, the divisions literally exploded their way through it in March at Steinfeld, and began to propel the Wehrmacht into a retreat from which it could never recover. Armored columns kept punching their way through roadblock after roadblock in town after town with powerful artillery and air concentrations that never gave the German soldiers a chance to respond. As a result of the rapid advance of Seventh Army and the 14th, German POW camps like the ones at Hammelburg and Moosburg were liberated of over 100,000 prisoners, an achievement which gave the division the nom de guerre "The Liberators." Timothy O''Keeffe, a Professor Emeritus from Southern Connecticut State College, had a brotherinlaw who lost a leg while serving with the “Liberators,” and thus has devoted years of effort to unveiling the crucial, yet heretofore unwritten, role that they played in the ultimate Allied victory.

In the late 1930s, the U.S. Army began a significant overhaul of its vehicle fleet, shaping the logistics backbone of World War II. Affecting this effort were two major schools of thought regarding logistical support: some experts proposed the trailer or semitrailer, which had a physical separation between the mechanical part of the truck and the rear technical part containing supplies or specialist equipment; opponents encouraged the use of compact and inseparable assemblies to save time in the field. Both types of trucks would be used during World War I, complete trucks intended for the front and its immediate rear, the lines of communications and the staging area being the domain of tractors and semitrailers.This book examines all the different weight categories of tractor trucks and semitrailers used by the U.S. Army during World War II. Illustrated with hundreds of period photographs, illustrations, and diagrams, the text discusses all variants including an array of specialized vehicles for units such as commissary, engineering, aviation, and cavalry.

This is a true story. About survival.A Breton soldier who fought at Hastings returns to his family’s ancient Celtic roots in the West County. Nicholas St Aubyn follows his family’s tenuous path over the next one thousand years, describing those they loved, the many wars they fought, and their role in Cornish rebellions. His story also features a host of remarkable women, from the Countess of Oxford in the 14th century to Honor Basset at the 16th century Tudor court and Vita Sackville-West, a member of the 20th century Bloomsbury Group.He shows how the St Aubyns acquired St Michaels’ Mount during the Civil War, the Jacobite conspiracy plotted by Sir John St Aubyn, and the love between his grandson Sir John and local farmer’s daughter, Juliana, who inspired Winston Graham’s Poldark novels. The story moves from medieval battles, and shipwrecked treasure in Mount’s Bay, to love at the Court of Henry VIII, and the political fortunes of fourteen family MPs since 1283.The diary of one illegitimate son reveals the life of a Regency rake, as another builds a property empire in Devonport, while a third shocks his parishioners. In the First World War, St Aubyns were found on the Western Front, and during the Second, they served on the PQ17 Arctic Convoy and at the Battle of Arnhem. The gift of the family castle to the National Trust seventy years ago is one of many events that give this history its unique and increasingly personal perspective as the family identity evolves.

The Moor Hospital, its Gothic grandeur shaping the city’s eastern skyline, has been a place of curiosity and mystery for generations of Lancastrians for almost two centuries. Author Gary Bradshaw grew up in Lancaster and trained as a Mental Health Nurse at the Moor. Upon retirement, he decided to delve into the archives to piece together the story of the hospital, and to put faces to the names of some of those who passed through its doors. In the early days, the Asylum adopted methods which we find quite shocking today, with their brutality and emphasis on containment and control, rather than treatment and cure. But, although we can be horrified by such practices, they must be seen within their historical context. These were different times, with little insight into the human body and mind. Over the years, care gradually improved, and for certain periods, Lancaster was even seen as a model of good practice. This excellent history of the Moor Hospital is set against a background of changing attitudes, developing medical knowledge and pioneering treatments. It is a fascinating and informative read for everyone.

Julian Zuromski was on the verge of becoming a fighter pilot when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. He witnessed the Luftwaffe''s bombings and the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, eventually escaping to Romania. After being imprisoned, he fled to France, where he fought in the Battle of France before escaping to Great Britain after France’s surrender. There, he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.Zuromski served as an instructor at RAF Dumfries and later flew operational patrols, claiming his first aerial victory in 1942 while flying a Spitfire with 308 Squadron. He went on to achieve two more victories, including the destruction of a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 with 66 Squadron in 1943. On that same day, Zuromski was shot down, captured, and sent to Dulag Luft, where he wrote anti-Bolshevik propaganda, later being moved to a special camp in Berlin.Zuromski escaped captivity during an Allied bombing raid, eventually making his way to Poland and reuniting with his fiancée. Although suspected of collaboration due to his wartime activities, he was exonerated and later served in the Royal Pakistan Air Force. This book also explores the fate of Zuromski’s father, a victim of the Katyn massacre, and the contributions of other Polish pilots in WWII.

In 1912 the unthinkable happened - the supposedly unsinkable Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg, or so it was thought. In this bestselling book author Robin Gardiner claims that it was not in fact the Titanic but the sister ship, the Olympic, which finished its days sinking in the icy waters of the North Atlantic on that fateful night. His contention is that what happened was an insurance scam perpetrated by the White Star line which may have involved the possible collusion by the British government in the cover-up. On 20 September 1911, the Olympic was involved in a collision with the Royal Navy Warship HMS Hawke in Southampton Water. Olympic was found to be to blame in the collision. Because of this finding, White Star''s insurers allegedly refused to pay out on the claim. As this would amount to a serious financial loss for the company, it is alleged that, to make sure at least one vessel would be earning money, the badly damaged Olympic was patched up and then converted to become the Titanic. The real Titanic when complete would then quietly enter service as the Olympic. To dispose of the Olympic, which had allegedly been damaged beyond economic repair in a way that would allow White Star to collect the full insured value of a brand new ship, the plan was to open the seacocks at sea to slowly flood the ship. Numerous ships were stationed nearby to take off the passengers, the shortage of lifeboats would not matter as the ship would sink slowly and the boats could make several trips to the rescuers. The controversy which this theory has generated, and some of the evidence used to support it is compelling, has made this book into a bestseller in the years since it was first published. Regardless of whether you choose to believe in this version of the events that took place on that terrible night in 1912, which still resonate so strongly well over a century afterwards, Titanic: The Ship That Never Sank? is a fascinating, well written and absorbing read.

Neolithic long barrows in Bohemia were long neglected by archaeologists due to their destruction by modern intensive agricultural activity. This new analysis, resulting from a threeyear interdisciplinary research project, of the phenomenon of Neolithic long barrows in Bohemia and Central Europe presents entirely new findings and data and tackles a number of previously unresolved questions. New discoveries, based primarily on remote sensing and targeted excavations, together with the revision of earlier archaeological records, allow us to define more accurately the construction and chronological development of these monuments, and to advance our knowledge of the southeastern boundary of this phenomenon''s spread together with reconstruction of the social and religious significance of these monuments for the agricultural communities of Central Europe. At the sacred places defined by the long barrows, ceremonies and rituals took place over millennia that confirmed the cohesion of the living with the ancestors and their faith in the gods. People, even many generations later, continued to venerate these ancient monuments, not as places of final rest for their direct ancestors but as places dedicated to mythical time, where the living meet the dead and honour the gods. It is not surprising, therefore, that people added the burials of their own ancestors to the embankments of ancient barrows and established their own funerary areas nearby even after several millennia.All long barrows excavated within our project contained only one primary burial: in Bohemia these were not collective graves as found, for example, in the British Isles or Scandinavia. Given the monumentality of barrow construction, it can be presumed that the buried individuals represented a form of social elite, though not necessarily due to their individual social power. It seems that the primary burial played the role of an initiation sacrifice: a ritual of consecration of the ancestor sanctuary, which then no longer served for further burials that may have been taboo. Subsequent activities may have been related to forms of ancestral cult, but the primary burial was not followed by other funerary events. All evidence of later burials is at least 1000 years later than barrow construction.In the region around the Czech mythical Mountain Říp, burial monuments from various prehistoric periods, including the Late Neolithic, abound. Residential and economic activities on the plains appear later. It can be assumed that this area was perceived as a ritual landscape in earlier prehistory in which long barrows played a significant role in structuring the farming landscape and as significant landmarks. Their monumentality initiated a longstanding tradition creating palimpsests of funerary and sacred sites near Mount Říp. The places where the long barrows were built played an important role in the lives of prehistoric communities, and their placement and orientation in the landscape was not random, indicating significant symbolic connotations with the surrounding landscape. The rituals and festivities held here allowed people to connect with the spiritual legacy of their ancestors, thus creating a significant spiritual tradition inscribed in the agriculturally colonised landscape.

This is the third and final volume in a series examining the history of Rome in the early Middle Ages (700?1000 CE) through the primary lens of the city''s material culture. The previous volumes examined the eighth and the ninth centuries respectively. John Osborne uses buildings (both religious and domestic), their decorations, other works of painting and sculpture, inscriptions, manuscripts, ceramics, metalwork, and coins as ''documents'' to supplement what can be gleaned from more traditional written sources such as the Liber pontificalis. The overall approach is particularly appropriate for tenth-century Rome, which has traditionally been considered a ''dark age'', given recent research on standing monuments and the large amount of new material brought to light in archaeological excavations undertaken over the last four decades. This magnificent and beautifully illustrated volume provides a triumphant conclusion to a series which will be indispensable for all those interested in early medieval Rome.

The Ordnungspolizei or Order Police was one of the main apparatus for the security of Nazi Germany. During the 1930s, Heinrich Himmler, Head of the SS, along with the Commander-in-Chief of the Order Police, Kurt Daluege, totally reconstructed the police force of the Weimar Republic into a number of strong militarized formations. Those that served in this new police force were more than ready to carry out any order that the Nazi''s required of them including persecution of Jews and anyone deemed inferior to the regime. In fact, in 1938, police units participated in the annexation of Austria and the occupation of Czechoslovakia. A year later when Germany invaded Poland, the role of the police changed forever. Police units were deployed alongside the German military including the special murder squads of the Einsatzgruppen. In Poland, Order Police were transformed into militarized police battalions and participated in combat operations which included carrying out security duties behind enemy lines. These duties were often sinister and alongside some Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS and Einsatzgruppen, the police battalions engaged in the systematic murder and annihilation of Poles and Jews.Following the conquest of Poland the Nazi leadership created a massive recruitment drive conscripting more than 95,000 men in their thirties. Another 26,000 younger men were also recruited and indoctrinated into Nazi ideology and trained for combat. These new recruits would now take part not only in military operations but would be an integral part of the Holocaust, responsible for mass murders and guarding some of the Jewish ghettos. They would also assist in the destruction of the ghettos and helping in the transport of Jews to concentration camps. During the summer of 1941 these Police units were involved in mass killings of Babi Yar, Rumbula and Stanislaviv. Yet after the war, many of the Order Policemen claimed never to have been involved in Nazi crimes.

All monarchs have need of those to whom they give their trust. Never was this more essential than for the kings of Medieval England. From the Norman victory of 1066 to the bloody demise of Richard III in 1485, the stings and arrows of royal life bred relentless vigilance, distrust, and paranoia.This volume covers a period of 419 years. It starts with a bloody battle and ends with a bloody battle. To understand the lives and actions of court favourites, one must also know about the monarchs they served. In this book, you will read short biographies of each monarch, followed by a few of those courtiers to whom they gave their trust, not always deserved.You will read about the vicious actions of William the Conqueror, who, despite his victory on Senlac Hill, took five years to subdue the English, but who could not have achieved his victories without trusted lieutenants like William Fitz Osbern. How Stephen’s innate indolence almost lost him England, had it not been for William of Ypres, and how Matilda’s half-brother, Robert of Gloucester, kept her hopes of finally sitting on the throne bequeathed to her by her father Henry I alive.The Plantagenet kings changed the face of England, often bringing riches to those who hitched their wagons to the monarchy. Men still revered today, like William Marshal, known as The Greatest Knight, who faithfully served five kings. Various younger brothers held high church offices. Not all served to enrich themselves. John Beauchamp became a favourite of Edward III but was not overtly mercenary.The Wars of the Roses left England virtually bankrupt. The favourites on either side, the Lancastrian Somersets and the Yorkist Nevilles, gained enormous wealth and power, determined to fight to the death. The death that ended it was Richard III’s on 22nd August 1485, when Henry Tudor grabbed the throne, and the Tudor Age began.

The literature on Zionism as a political ideology is extensive, but this book takes a different approach by focusing on the cultural dimensions of the movement and their profound impact on the history of Israel and the Jewish people. New Hebrews explores the cultural history of Zionism, starting from the meeting of the first Zionist congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1897, and culminating with the establishment of the State of Israel 51 years later in 1948. Yaron Peleg explores how innovative approaches in language, literature, architecture, art, music, and body culture transformed modern Jewish culture. His study delves into the contentious facets of early Zionist culture, such as colonialism, social engineering, minority discourse, and Jewish-Arab relations. New Hebrews presents an interdisciplinary examination of nationalism, drawing from a diverse array of primary sources to uncover the psychology of modern Israel. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

The book investigates lines of connection and shared literary heritage between the Persianate and Malay-Indonesian worlds over many centuries. Majid Daneshgar provides a critical and comparative study of Persianate-Malay stories, with specific focus on Durr al-Majalis, or Pearl of Gatherings – a classical Islamic text produced by Sayf Zafar (late thirteenth–mid-fourteenth centuries CE), a writer and scholar of Central Asian background, during the Delhi Sultanate. The book illustrates how the Durr al-Majalis contains various legal, theological-philosophical, metaphysical, chivalrous and mystical accounts. In addition, it traces how the book travelled beyond the so-called ‘Balkans-to-Bengal’ borders and was copied, translated and annotated across Eastern Africa, Eastern Turkistan, Mongol-dominated China, Arabic-speaking Egypt and South East Asia. It demonstrates how this Persian collection of stories shaped the idea of Islam, Islamic teachings and stories across the Muslim World, and in the Malay-Indonesian World in particular.

The Military History of Late Rome 425-457 analyses in great detail how the Romans coped with the challenge posed by masses of Huns in a situation in which the Germanic tribes had gained a permanent foothold in the territories of West Rome. This analysis reassesses the strategy and tactics of the period . The book shows how cooperation between the West Roman Master of Soldiers, Aetius, and East Roman Emperor Marcian saved Western civilization from the barbarian nightmare posed by the Huns of Attila. A fresh appraisal of the great clash at the Catalaunian Fields in 451 offers new insights into the mechanics of the fighting and shows that it was a true battle of nations which decided nothing less than the fate of human civilization. Had Aetius and his allies lost the battle and had Marcian not cooperated with Aetius in 451 and 452, we would not have seen the rise of the West and the rise of the scientific thinking.

We have all heard of the Black Death and how it scythed its way through England and the rest of Europe in the late 1340s, and we hear that a third or perhaps even half of the entire English population died in this terrible pandemic. However the numbers are so vast that the victims become little more than statistics. They blur into a kind of unreality, a mute testimony to a catastrophe beyond imagination or comprehension. The Black Death in England aims to rectify this by giving names to some of the people who died in the fourteenth-century epidemics of the Plague Years and recognises those who lived through it, recreating something of their lives and what they went through.

In the 1990s, a vision emerged of a frictionless world of globalization in which the West would become ever richer on the basis of a tech-based service economy, all underpinned by a rules-based liberal international order. It became the basis for the mainstream politics of centre-left and right. Philip Pilkington argues that this vision was always delusional and is now dying. It is based on a doctrinaire and unrealistic form of liberalism and has given rise to hollowed-out financialised economies and disintegrating societies that can barely even reproduce their population or meet their energy needs. The US and UK find themselves ill-equipped to compete with China and other non-liberal states within an emerging post-liberal order in which what really matters is industrial capacity, realpolitik and military strength. Only by abandoning our liberal delusions and advancing our own brand of hard-headed post-liberalism can the West survive. No clear-sighted observer of contemporary geopolitics can afford to miss this bracing diagnosis of the West’s malaise and bold agenda for renewal. Also available as an audiobook.