Najnovšie - História strana 62 z 161

Discovering Submerged Stories is an immersive exploration of underwater archaeology. Blending personal narrative with historical and archaeological insights, the book reveals twelve fascinating submerged sites and the stories they hold. Duncan Ross shares his compelling account, from a private dream to the rigorous training and quest to assist in important archaeological projects. The book explores a diverse range of underwater heritage, including classic shipwrecks, a Victorian-era submarine, a World War II plane, ancient settlements, and submerged forests. Filled with stunning photographs from expert contributors, the book serves as a testament to how passion can lead to extraordinary journeys - a must-read for diving enthusiasts and history buffs alike.

The Black Death that arrived in the spring of 1348 eventually killed nearly half of England's population. In its long aftermath, wages in London rose in response to labor shortages, many survivors moved into larger quarters in the depopulated city, and people in general spent more money on food, clothing, and household furnishings than they had before. Household Goods and Good Households in Late Medieval London looks at how this increased consumption reconfigured long-held gender roles and changed the domestic lives of London's merchants and artisans for years to come. Grounding her analysis in both the study of surviving household artifacts and extensive archival research, Katherine L. French examines the accommodations that Londoners made to their bigger houses and the increasing number of possessions these contained. The changes in material circumstance reshaped domestic hierarchies and produced new routines and expectations. Recognizing that the greater number of possessions required a different kind of management and care, French puts housework and gender at the center of her study. Historically, the task of managing bodies and things and the dirt and chaos they create has been unproblematically defined as women's work. Housework, however, is neither timeless nor ahistorical, and French traces a major shift in women's household responsibilities to the arrival and gendering of new possessions and the creation of new household spaces in the decades after the plague.

In 1878, Wyatt Earp, town marshall of Dodge City, was attempting to arrest some drunken, armed men who''d cornered him in a saloon. John Henry ''Doc'' Holliday, who''d been gambling nearby, stepped in with a revolver and quieted the drunks, allowing Earp to make his arrests. This was the start to the most legendary friendship and partnership of the American West. Through action-packed adventures, Gardner shows us how, over the years, Holliday became like a brother to Wyatt, riding from town to town, throughout the west. This thrilling narrative builds up to the moment when they''d hunt down the very men who murdered Wyatt''s brother, Morgan, a legendary search that enthusiasts of the Wild West are eager to learn more about. Gardner shows that there is far more to unearth about this famous friendship. Researched through firsthand observations at historic sites and countless contemporary letters and newspaper reports, this is the definitive book on Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and their fascinating bond.

Louise Bryant and her husband John Reed were among a relatively small group of Americans who participated in one of the most important events of the twentieth century, the Russian Revolution of 1917. As first-hand observers, they attended meetings of the revolutionaries, were present at teh Winter Palace as it was under attack, and witnesssed  the surrender of the palace guards. Over the next weeks, they saw a new regime emerge and met manu of tis most important figures, including Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, and Kollontai. Bryant returned home in 1918 and immediately began working on the book that would becime Six Red Months in Russia. Unfortunately for Bryant, her sec and her relationship with Reed overshadowed her talent as a writer and the depth of her observations of this historic event. But Bryant deserves better; she had her oen voice and was a skilled observer and journalist in her own right. While Reed''s book is certainly a significant work, it contains little personal commentary. Bryant''s account, by comparison, is also a documentation of the revolution, but it goes farther than Reed''s in many wants, adding interpretation to observation. Bryant communicates what life was like during the days of the revolution - the people, the food, the excitement, the fear. She is also keenly aware of her American audience and speaks directly to them, urging them to pay attention to this world-changing moment in history and not to be fooled by the misinformation about Bolshevism and the new regime. Six Red Months in Russia conveys Bryant''s understanding of the revolution, and reminds us of the utter enthusiasm that many Russians, and Americans, felt for socialism and its yet-untainted, utopian ideals. This new edition of Bryant''s book is annotated and set in its appropriate historical context to create a more accessible text for modern readers on the anniversary of this truly world-changing event. 

Through the Russian Revolution by Albert Rhys-Williams, a Congregationalist pastor turned labor organiser and journalist, offers readers a first-hand account of the exciting and confusing events of the Russian revolution from June 1917 to August 1918. Williams, a lifelong defender of the Soviet system, documented his first adventure in Russia at its most chaotic moments. There he formed a lasting impression of what he thought the Soviet system could offer to the world and dedicated the rest of his life to this cause. His account, while sympathetic, reveals to a modern audience the inner working of the Bolshevik Party, life in Petrograd and the countryside, and an optimistic vision of the revolutionary future. 

Why were the United States and its Western Allies so lenient after the most atrocious war of all times? Out of Hitler''s Shadow answers this question, and considers why the Allies concluded that imposing unrealistic financial conditions on a defeated country would do more harm than good.The destruction left by Nazi Germany was horrendous. The occupied countries had been ravaged and plundered, millions of people murdered, cities laid in ashes. There was every reason to make the defeated Germans pay for ''Hitler''s debt'' as The New York Times called the gigantic damage inflicted. But whereas the Soviet Union punished East Germany, the Western Allies, at the London Debt Conference (1952) decided to forgo all war-related debts. The Federal Republic of Germany - the Western successor state of Nazi Germany - had to settle no more than half of all outstanding debts stemming from pre-war obligations and post-war assistance. Only Israel and private Jewish organisations received reparations from the Federal Republic, but it was a modest amount.Why were the United States and its Western Allies so lenient after the most atrocious war of all times? Out of Hitler''s Shadow answers this question, and considers why the Allies concluded that imposing unrealistic financial conditions on a defeated country would do more harm than good.These actions challenged widely held notions of justice. People who had suffered most from the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany were not compensated. The deal was unfair in many ways, but diplomats and politicians had to make hard choices. Five statesmen were particularly bold: U.S. Secretary of State Acheson, German Chancellor Adenauer, French Foreign Minister Schuman as well as Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and Foreign Minister Sharett. Tobias Straumann explains why the personalities involved deserve to be remembered for their strategic clarity in the face of enormous resistance.

This new study offers a fresh interpretation of apartheid South Africa. Emerging out of the author''s long-standing interests in the history of racial segregation, and drawing on a great deal of new scholarship, archival collections, and personal memoirs, he situates apartheid in global as well as local contexts. The overall conception of Apartheid, 1948-1994 is to integrate studies of resistance with the analysis of power, paying attention to the importance of ideas, institutions, and culture. Saul Dubow refamiliarises and defamiliarise apartheid so as to approach South Africa''s white supremacist past from unlikely perspectives. He asks not only why apartheid was defeated, but how it survived so long. He neither presumes the rise of apartheid nor its demise. This synoptic reinterpretation is designed to introduce students to apartheid and to generate new questions for experts in the field.

Seconds to Midnight is a concise history of nuclear weapons, tracing their development from the scientific breakthroughs of the 1930s to the Cold War arms race between East and West, and on to today's nuclear hotspots in India, North Korea, Taiwan, and Iran. The book also explores efforts to contain this danger through international treaties, scientific advocacy, and public protest movements—responses to what remains one of the most serious threats to global security and human survival. By providing essential context, the book helps readers understand the urgency of today's nuclear dilemmas.

How did Richard the Lionheart, who once said he would sell London if he found a buyer, become celebrated as the ideal of English chivalry? This book examines the life of Richard I (1157–1199) through the captivating stories told about him, from accounts of his deeds in medieval sources to his portrayals in modern literature and media. Tales of Richard’s exploits were as colourful as they were varied, ranging from him wielding King Arthur’s sword to being a son of the Devil or even a cannibal. Instead of separating fact from fiction, this book explores how these tales shaped his legacy in both his time and ours.

Francis I of France led one of the most colourful and influential courts of the sixteenth century. Known as the ‘knight–king’, he was a chivalric warrior, a strong ruler and a passionate patron of the arts and of the French nobility. While he faced setbacks and took significant risks, Francis left his successor a kingdom that was larger, better governed and more stable than before. This concise biography paints a vivid portrait of Francis, exploring his achievements, challenges and enduring legacy. It captures his role in shaping the French Renaissance, blending engaging storytelling with insights drawn from extensive primary research. Cogent and lively, this book provides a clear narrative of Francis’s reign and explains why he is celebrated as France’s great Renaissance monarch.

Danish physician and anatomist Thomas Bartholin (1616-1680) was one of the most important anatomists of the 17th century. As a scientist, his greatest achievement was the discovery and naming of the lymphatic vessels, but he was also a pioneer in a number of other areas of medicine. In Denmark, his tireless efforts as head of the Anatomy House in Copenhagen and professor of anatomy and medicine were crucial to the rise of anatomical science in the 17th century. He was a skilled and sought-after teacher and mentor, and his efforts in this area were crucial to his famous student Niels Stensen''s (1638-1686) outstanding career as an anatomist and geologist. With his authorship of over 80 comprehensive books, Thomas Bartholin was one of the most diligent and skilful communicators of his time. The book unfolds the entire life and work of Thomas Bartholin and analyses and puts into perspective his significance for contemporaries and posterity in a scientific context. The book is an expanded English version of the author''s Danish biography of Thomas Bartholin from 2017, where the new material relates in particular to his importance to Niels Stensen.

Between 1929 and 1945, two great travails were visited upon the American people: the Great Depression and World War II. Freedom from Fear tells the story of how Americans endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of those unprecedented calamities.The Depression was both a disaster and an opportunity. As David Kennedy vividly demonstrates, the economic crisis of the 1930s was far more than a simple reaction to the alleged excesses of the 1920s. For more than a century before 1929, America''s unbridled industrial revolution had gyrated through repeated boom and bust cycles, wastefullly consuming capital and inflicting untold misery on city and countryside alike. Nor was the fabled prosperity of the 1920s as uniformly shared ag legend portrays. Countless Americans, especially if they were farmers, African Americans, or recent immigrants, eked out thread bare lives on the margins of national life. For them the Depression was but another of the ordeals of fear and insecurity with which they were sadly familiar.Franklin Roosevelt''s New Deal wrung from the trauma of the 1930s a lasting legacy of economic and social reform, in cluding the Social Security Act, new banking and financial laws, regulatory legistlation, and new opportunities for organized labour. Taken together, those reforms gave a measure of security to millons of Americans who had never had much of it, and with a fresh sense of having a stake in their country.Freedom from Fear tells the story of the New Deal''s achievments, without slighting its shortcomings, contraditions and failures. It is a story rinch in drama and peopled with unforgettable personalities, including the incandescent but enigmatic figure of Roosevelt himself.Even as the New Deal was coping with the Depression, a still more fearsome menace was developing abroad--Hitler''s thirst for war in Europe, coupled with the imperial ambitions of Japan in Asia. The same generation of Americans who battled the Depression evenutally had to shoulder the arms in another conflict that wreaked world wide destruction, ushered in the nuclear age and forever changed their own way of life and their country''s relationship to the rest of the world. Freedom from Fear explains how the nation agonized over its role in World War II, how it fought the war, why the United States won, and why the consequences of victory were sometimes sweet, sometimes ironic. In a compelling narrative, Kenney analyses the determinants of American strategy, the painful choices faced by commanders and statesmen, and the agonies inflicted on the millions of ordinary Americans who were compelled to swallow their fears and face battle as best they could.Freedom from Fear is a comprehensive and colourful account of the most convulsive period in American history, excepting only the Civil War - a period that formed the crucible in which modern America was formed.

From prehistory to present times, Nottinghamshire has seen Romans, marauding Danes, barons, rebel armies, kings, radicals and industrialists. The county is home to hand-carved caves, Sherwood Forest, more than forty monastic houses, a medieval ‘dance of death’, mansions, workhouses, and pumping stations. Robin Hood, the ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’ poet Lord Byron, Scrooby’s Pilgrim Fathers, four regicides, Jesse Boot the chemist, D.H. Lawrence, and the composer of the ''Dam Busters March'' all lived here.The medieval wool trade was superseded by coal, gypsum and textiles including Nottingham’s famous lace industry. John Player’s tobacco and Raleigh bicycles were based here. Home to dukes, princes and playboys as well as dissenters, revolutionaries, pioneers and Olympians, the people of Nottinghamshire have seen it all.

Sugar was once the most powerful commodity on earth. It shaped world affairs, influenced the economic policies of nations, drove international trade and left a legacy of suffering that still resonates today. But how did a substance that began as an expensive luxury of the wealthy become a staple in the modern worl? n Sugar this dark history is unveiled, from the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade to the environmental devastation caused by sugar cultivation. Richly detailed and thoroughly compelling, Elizabeth Abbott traces sugar from its very origins to the twenty-first century, examining the true cost of satisfying the world's sweet tooth.

Margaret Tudor, the elder sister of her more famous brother Henry VIII, is the single most important Tudor figure of this era that historians have consistently overlooked. Married at thirteen to the charismatic James IV of Scotland, a man more than twice her age, she would learn the skills of statecraft that would enable her to survive his early death, and to construct a powerful position in her adopted country of Scotland as she dealt with domestic issues as well as navigating international relations with England and France.Often reviled for her hasty remarriage (and therefore the loss of the regency) the book shows that Margaret was damned if she did remarry and damned if she didn’t. Her two subsequent marriages were both disastrous personally, but she never gave up. Her son attained the throne in his own right in 1528, largely through his mother’s determination.Margaret’s story is also one of fierce sibling rivalry with her younger brother, Henry VIII, a series of matrimonial mishaps, and fighting off an unearned reputation as an over-sexed whinger fixated by clothes and jewels, Margaret was a complex (not always likeable) woman who had the true Tudor attributes of self-expression and a flair for the dramatic. She knew that you had to look like a queen.Drawing on Margaret’s extensive correspondence (more of her letters survive than of all the other Tudor queens put together), and contemporary poems and literature, Linda Porter fashions a compelling story of a misunderstood and underestimated Tudor monarch, whose determination to fight for the rights of her son, James V, is at the core of her dramatic life and indeed laid the groundwork for a future British state.

'A deftly written, colourful little tour of plebeian Rome' Dan Jones, Sunday TimesThe untold story of the real people who built an empireThe plebs were the backbone of Roman civilization. They were the farmers who fed the city, the soldiers who conquered the Mediterranean, and the craftsmen who built the monuments we still admire today. In Plebs Romana, renowned classicist and bestselling author Peter Jones takes us through the twists and turns of Rome's turbulent history - from bloody conquests and civil wars to street riots and shocking scandals - to reveal how this disparate, downtrodden underclass evolved into a political force that challenged the ruling elite and transformed the Roman Republic. From debt crises to dinner parties, graffiti to gladiators, slaves to strikes, Jones provides fascinating insights into every aspect of ordinary Roman life. It is an extraordinary and entertaining account that, for the first time, places at the heart of the story Rome's working people, who unwittingly helped to lay the foundations of our political system. 'Jones has an eagle's high eye for the history of Rome' The Times'Jones makes the classical world feel both beguiling and fresh' Sunday Times

A detailed re-examination of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Day of Infamy that saw the USA enter World War II.In this the first comprehensive treatment of Pearl Harbor since the early 1990s. respected Pacific War naval historian Mark E. Stille traces the road to war and the Japanese attack itself. He examines the role of the man behind the operation, Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the plan. The American preparations for an attack are also carefully reviewed. The heart of the book is a comprehensive narrative of Pearl Harbor along with an appreciation of its results placed in proper perspective.In common with many of the major campaigns of the Pacific War, many myths surround the Battle of Pearl Harbor, and, amongst others, Mark explores and dismantle the myth of Yamamoto as a military genius, as well as the myth that the attack was brilliantly planned. Long regarded as brilliant strike, Mark argues in Pearl Harbor that the attack was instead a tactical disappointment, an operational failure and a strategic disaster.

The fascinating history of St Stephen''s Chapel in the Palace of Westminster, a building at the heart of British life for over 700 years. Begun in 1292, the royal chapel of St Stephen was the crowning glory of the old palace of Westminster – a place of worship for kings and a showcase of the finest architecture, ritual and music the Plantagenets could muster. But in 1548, as the Protestant Reformation reached its height, St Stephen''s was given a new purpose as the House of Commons. Burned out in the great palace fire of 1834, the Commons chamber was then recreated on a remarkably similar medieval design, perpetuating a way of doing politics that is recognisable to this day.St Stephen''s has been part of many lives over the centuries, from the medieval masons who worked through the Black Death to complete the chapel, to the generations of MPs who locked horns in the Commons chamber. Threading together religion, politics, art, architecture and narrative history, John Cooper tells the story of the lost chapel, an iconic building that reflects the national transition from medieval divine-right monarchy to modern parliamentary democracy.

Budapest, autumn 1943. Four years into the war, Hungary is allied with Nazi Germany and the Hungarian capital is the Casablanca of central Europe. The city swirls with intrigue and betrayal, home to spies and agents of every kind. But Budapest remains at peace, an oasis in the midst of war where Allied POWs, and Polish and Jewish refugees find sanctuary. The riverside cafes are crowded and the city’s famed cultural life still thrives.All that comes to an end in March 1944 when the Nazis invade. By the summer, Allied bombers are pounding its grand boulevards and historic squares. Budapest’s surviving Jewish population has been forcibly relocated to cramped, overcrowded Yellow Star houses. By late December, the city is surrounded and under siege from the Red Army. Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians die in the savage siege as Budapest collapses into anarchy. Hungarian death squads roam the streets as the city’s Jews are forced into ghettos. Russian artillery pounds the city into smoking rubble as starving residents hack chunks of meat from dead, frozen horses.Using newly uncovered diaries, documents, archival material and interviews with the last survivors, Adam LeBor brilliantly recreates life and death in the wartime city, the catastrophic fate of half of its Jewish population and the destruction of the siege.Told through the lives of a cast of vivid, gripping characters, including glamorous aristocrats, spies, smugglers and SS Officers, a rebellious teenage Jewish schoolboy, Hungary''s most popular actress and her spy chief lover, a Jewish businesswoman who negotiated with Adolf Eichmann, a Christian doctor hiding her Jewish neighbours and a teenage Hungarian soldier, the story of how Budapest slowly dies as the war destroys the city is utterly compelling.