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Understanding WW2
As oral history gains long-overdue recognition, its power to illuminate the past has never been more vital. From buried time capsules to the preserved voices, letters, diaries, photographs and films of those who lived through history’s most pivotal moments, this book explores how personal testimony shapes our understanding of truth. Split into six main chapters and focussing on the Second World War years, Andrew Sangster starts by analysing personal letters from key players on both sides – Himmler, Rommel and Patton – before exploring the diaries of Lord Alan Brooke, Goebbels and Galeazzo Ciano, to name but a few. The final chapters explore the significance of the recorded notes from the Nuremberg Trials, before explaining the merits of autobiographies written after the fact. With honesty and clarity, the author reveals the challenges historians face – how memories can shift, how documents can be altered and how autobiographies, even in their sincerity, must be handled with care. Still, within these fragile records lie invaluable insights: motives, emotions and the human reactions that traditional archives often overlook. Balanced and engaging, Understanding WW2 is an essential guide to the promise and pitfalls of oral history – and a compelling reminder that the voices of ordinary men and women are as crucial to our collective memory as those of the famous and powerful.
Operation Spider’s Web
It was a lazy Sunday morning in Russia on 1 June 2025. The war with Ukraine had been going for over three years. That morning 117 Ukrainian drones rose up from the back of four trucks deep inside Russia itself and started flying towards their targets – a number of Russian airbases. They were Ukrainian made Osa (‘Wasp’) quadcopters. They were packed in crates of around twenty-seven drones each and driven across the country in the back of cargo trucks. The unsuspecting Russian truck drivers thought they were delivering materials for pre-fabricated houses. Instead, several of the drivers were asked to pull over at a local gas station or parking lot, and then suddenly the cover of the cargo container came off and more than two dozen drones took off towards a nearby air base. The Russian drivers were taken completely by surprise. The drones then attacked the Russian bombers at four air bases across the vast expanse of Russia, from a base above the arctic circle near Murmansk, to the heart of European Russia, out to the middle of Siberia, near Lake Baikal. Large old Russian strategic bombers, like Tu-95s and Tu-22s came under attack, along with Russia’s valuable Airborne Early Warning and Control Beriat A-50s. Maybe two dozen planes were attacked by the drones on three of the airfields, and it appears that over a dozen were destroyed. This attack stunned Russia, as this was their strategic bomber force. Not only was it being used to regularly strike at Ukrainian infrastructure and cities, but these were the nuclear-capable strategic bombers that were an important part of their Strategic Deterrent Forces. Some Russians, in shock, equated it to a Russian Pearl Harbor. This book explores the full story of a covert attack that has changed the rules of military warfare forever.
Tanks and Armour in the Battle for Moscow
From the moment Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, code-named Operation Barbarossa, Hitler was fixated on the capture of Moscow. Yet his fear of exposing the flanks of the German Central Front led to costly diversions north and south at Leningrad and Kiev, delaying the assault on the Russian capital. When the Battle of Moscow – Operation Typhoon – finally began on 30 September, the Panzerwaffe was already weakened while Soviet forces had fortified their defences and reinforced their lines. Spanning a 370-mile front, 3rd and 4th Panzer Armies in the north and 2nd Panzer Army in the south surged towards Moscow in a vast pincer movement with hundreds of tanks and assault guns in tow, relying on the familiar tactics of Blitzkrieg. But what followed was no lightning war. Instead, German tanks and infantry were dragged into a gruelling battle of attrition during the coldest recorded winter of the twentieth century. Snowbound and under-supplied, with entire units freezing to death, the offensive ground to a halt before the gates of the capital. Tanks and Armour in the Battle for Moscow offers a compelling visual account of the Panzerwaffe’s doomed advance on Moscow, drawing on over 130 rare and unpublished wartime photographs. Through detailed captions and expert narrative, it follows the campaign from its faltering restart in the spring of 1942 to the bloody Rzhev-Sychyovka offensive and beyond, charting how the Germans lost the initiative on the Eastern Front. By early 1943, any hope of capturing Moscow had vanished, and a protracted retreat westward had begun – one that would not end until the Reich itself lay in ruins.
When In Rome
Since the time of ancient Rome, science has explained many phenomena, including the rotation of the Earth around the Sun. But the Romans, who built the first roads, aqueducts, baths, and security walls, didn’t have the comfort of an earth sciences textbook. They needed the powerful beings of religious imagination to explain why the world doesn’t end when winter comes and the food sources die. The story of Pluto and Proserpina explains why the world is warm one moment and freezing six months later. Pluto, the god of the underworld, falls madly in love with Proserpina, daughter of the harvest goddess Ceres. Ceres, whose good will powers agriculture, goes on a climate-ravaging rampage, flooding and scorching the earth’s food crops. In her grief, she brings humanity to the edge of starvation. But the gods need humanity. So Pluto brokers a deal with Ceres to share Proserpina. When she is with her mother, the world is spring and summer. When she is with Pluto, Ceres moderates her grief into a survivable winter. When in Rome is a new look at Roman gods, such as Pluto, Ceres, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, as well as heroes like Hercules, Perseus, Jason, and Medea. Author Lynn Hamilton mines original Roman sources — Ovid, Apuleius, Virgil, and Hyginus — to uncover what is most enduring in this canon of ancient stories.
Saving African Nature
During the colonization of Africa, European colonists set about creating game reserves in Africa, convinced that they would find in Africa a nature that no longer existed in Europe. After independence, and with the help of UNESCO and the WWF, African leaders continued to 'protect' the same nature, a nature that the whole world wanted to be pristine, wild and without humans – a timeless Garden of Eden. The consequences of this story are well known: millions of Africans were expelled from the land on which they had lived for generations. But how did this happen? Who organized this continuity between the colonial era and the era of independence? Guillaume Blanc answers these questions by immersing himself at the heart of a strange global ecological mission, launched in 1961: the 'African Special Project'. He tells the story of this project by bringing to life four worlds: the world of gentleman experts who saw Africa as the world's last natural refuge; the world of East African colonists who were retraining as international experts; the world of African leaders who sought to control their peoples while satisfying the demands of their Western partners; and finally, the world of local farmers and their families living on the land who were forced to adapt or abandon their homes. These men do not speak of the same nature, but step by step, their worlds draw closer together until they meet – and this is where violence erupts. This impressive book lays bare the violence inherent in the creation of African game reserves and national parks and documents a hidden dimension of colonialism and its legacies.
Churchill and the Crown
The story of Winston Churchill's long relationship with the Crown—from radical liberal under Edward VII to his last premiership as an old man under the young Queen Elizabeth II. Winston Churchill was born in a palace and was given a funeral worthy of a king. His family had enjoyed an intimate association with the British monarchy stretching back centuries. As King Edward VIII said of him, 'I have never met anyone of royal blood who exemplified in such high degree the ideal of the 'good king.' Churchill and the Crown tells the story of Churchill's relationship with the various kings and queens he served during his long political career, from young journalist under Edward VII, through his dramatic fall from grace in the First World War under George V, the frustrations of appeasement during the interwar period and his relationship with Edward VIII during the abdication crisis of 1936, culminating in his Finest Hour in the Second World War under George VI and the coda of Churchill's public service to his final monarch: Queen Elizabeth II. Ted Powell analyses Churchill's writings on monarchy and his role in preserving and establishing monarchies outside Britain. At the core of the book is a series of studies of Churchill's relationships with the monarchs he served. These studies offer a two-way perspective, examining both Churchill's view of individual monarchs and their attitudes towards him. They shed light not only on Churchill's career but also on the changing role of the monarchy in 20th century Britain.
The Sanctuaries and Cults of Demeter in Asia Minor and the Islands off Its Western Coast
At least twenty-two sanctuaries of Demeter and Kore in Asia Minor and the islands off the western coast are attested by archaeological evidence. More than 272 epigraphic sources, nearly all of which are translated and discussed in this study, further document the cults of both goddesses in these regions. This monograph is the first study to draw on such a substantial body of material in order to demonstrate the cultic connections between cities in the Greek East and other parts of the Greek world. The archaeological and written sources provide insight into both regional and Pan-Hellenic features of the sanctuaries of Demeter and Kore, including their architectural layouts, the iconography of votive offerings, festivals, rituals, and the development of these practices over time. In assessing these regional and Pan-Hellenic characteristics, the analysis draws on the full range of archaeological and written evidence from across the Greek world. The available evidence indicates that the cults and sanctuaries of Demeter and Kore in the Greek East largely retained Greek characteristics; however, in certain regions, such as Caria, their cults were partially shaped by indigenous religious traditions. Despite Greek and later Roman hegemony, the cult of Demeter in other parts of Asia Minor, beyond western Asia Minor, was unable to supplant the cult of Cybele and other local chthonic fertility deities.
The Price of Victory
The final instalment of N.A.M. Rodger's definitive, authoritative trilogy on Britain's naval historyAt the end of the French and Napoleonic wars, British sea-power was at its apogee. But by 1840, as one contemporary commentator put it, the Admiralty was full of ‘intellects becalmed in the smoke of Trafalgar’. How the Royal Navy reformed and reinvigorated itself in the course of the nineteenth century is just one thread in this magnificent book, which refuses to accept standard assumptions and analyses. All the great actions are here, from Navarino in 1827 (won by a daringly disobedient Admiral Codrington) to Jutland, D-Day, the Battle of the Atlantic and the battles in the Pacific in 1944/45 in concert with the US Navy. The development and strategic significance of submarine and navy air forces is superbly described, as are the rapid evolution of ships (from classic Nelsonic type, to hybrid steam/sail ships, then armour-clad and the fully armoured Dreadnoughts and beyond) and weapons. The social history of officers and men – and sometimes women – always a key part of the author’s work, is not neglected. Rodger sets all this in the essential context of politics and geo-strategy. The character and importance of leading admirals – Beatty, Fisher, Cunningham – is assessed, together with the roles of other less famous but no less consequential figures. Based on a lifetime’s learning, it is the culmination of one of the most significant British historical works in recent decades. Naval specialists will find much that is new here, and will be invigorated by the originality of Rodger’s judgements; but everyone who is interested in the one of the central threads in British history will find it rewarding.
When She Remembered
When She Remembered showcases an intertwined group of seven influential women, from well-known figures such as Simone Veil to memory activist Sabine Zlatin, who shaped the production of Holocaust memory in France from 1945 to the present. Most of these women began their memory work immediately after the war by testifying at perpetrator trials and when monuments were commissioned. In the subsequent decades, their work transformed from personal memory projects to large-scale, politically driven initiatives. Through decades of engagement with Holocaust memory, these seven individuals ensured the stories of Jewish women were featured in the greater wartime narrative. In doing so, they deliberately shifted the French discourse on the Holocaust away from a focus on victimization and resistance to female agency during the fight for survival under Nazi occupation. Alongside other activists, these women became political actors by pushing the state to reckon with the legacy of French complicity in the deportation of Jews. Pulling from diverse archival sources as well as material culture and oral histories, When She Remembered convincingly reveals why the themes of gender, resistance, and memory continue to resonate widely in French history.
SNAFU: The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screwups
From actor, comedian, writer, and host of the hit history podcast SNAFU, Ed Helms brings you an absurdly entertaining look at history's greatest screwups, complete with lively illustrations. History contains a plethora of insane screwups-otherwise known as SNAFUs. Coined during World War I, SNAFU is an acronym that stands for Situation Normal: All F*cked Up. In other words, "things are pretty screwed up, but aren't they always?"Spanning from the 1950's to the 2000's, Ed Helms steps in as unofficial history teacher for a deep dive into each decade's craziest SNAFUs. From planting nukes on the moon to training felines as CIA spies to weaponizing the weather, this book will unpack the incredibly ironic decision-making and hilariously terrifying aftermath of America's biggest mishaps. Filled with sharp humor and lively illustrations, SNAFU is a wild ride through time that not only entertains but offers fresh insights that just might prevent history from repeating itself again and again.
The Companion to Churches
Every one of England’s churches is unique: from St. Edwold’s tiny church at Stockwood in Dorset and Bremilham in Wiltshire (twelve feet square and sitting in a farmyard) to the Gothic masterpiece of St Mary Redcliffe in Bristol and the great monastic churches of Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire and Sherborne in Dorset. The Companion to Churches is a comprehensive, fully illustrated A–Z guide to these churches, dating from the post Roman period to the present day, and covers subjects such as architecture, fittings and furnishings, decorative and allegorical features, stained glass, heraldry, traditions and customs, ecclesiastical history, and the role of the church in its community.
This Little World
'A perspective-altering take on a world we usually think of in far more domestic terms. A ground-breaking masterwork' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE'A page-turning history of how a nation was defined' PHILIPPA GREGORY'A glimmering vision of a Tudor and Stuart England we hardly know, yet which immediately feels essential' ALEX VON TUNZELMANNThe prize-winning author uncovers the revelatory global story of Tudor and Stuart England - told through the merchants, migrants, sailors, travellers and spies who helped forge a nation. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries forged a powerful image of England – Shakespeare’s ‘scepter’d isle’, proud and apart, defined by royal spectacle and myth. But beneath this familiar narrative of ruffs and gowns, kings and queens, lies a more complex and connected reality. England at this time was far from insular. Travelling in and out of the country were Venetian glassmakers with English wives, African innkeepers and Native American envoys. There were people like the Flemish artist Levina Teerlinc, probably the only painter to be employed by four English monarchs. There was William Adams, a Kentish navigator who became Japan's first English samurai. And there was Elizabeth Key, daughter of an enslaved mother in the colony in Virginia, who battled in the courts for herself and her son. Drawing on extensive archival research, attentive to the textures of daily life, yet alive to the sweep of history, This Little World offers a startlingly new, globally resonant vision of England’s past and what it meant to be English. It is a story of a nation in the making – on the cusp of empire – told through the traces of those often written out of it. In reframing England’s story within a wider world, it challenges us to rethink some of our most fundamental ideas: about nationhood, about identity, and above all, about belonging.
The Companion to Heraldry
‘A feast of heraldry and a thoroughly enjoyable book.’ - The Genealogist’s Magazine‘Very readable and lavishly illustrated . . . provides the keys to unlock the mysteries of heraldry and its language.’ - Teaching HistoryUbiquitous in the fabric of our ancient churches, castles and houses, in documents, and on monuments and stained glass, heraldry represents a treasure house of information for both the historian and the genealogist. In The Companion to Heraldry, Stephen Friar, an experienced armorist and historian, provides the reader with the keys to unlock the mysteries of heraldry’s language, conventions and traditions. The origins of heraldry and its significance in the lives of our noble and gentle forebears are considered, as are the interpretation of heraldic devices; the systems of marshalling that record affiliation, marriage and inheritance; cadency, by which the younger members of a family may be identified; and the symbols themselves, which often contain obscure references to a family’s history and its fluctuating relationships with the Crown. The conventions of armory are explained, and there is a useful section on the interpretation of blazon, the language of heraldry, complemented with an illustrated glossary. With over one hundred black-and-white photographs, sixteen pages of colour illustrations and exquisite line-drawings by Andrew Jamieson and John Ferguson, this volume provides a fascinating and comprehensive introduction to heraldry.
The Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition of 1851 was the world’s first international exposition of manufactured goods, inventions, works of art and artefacts from many cultures. A showcase of British manufacturing supremacy, an educational extravaganza, a lesson to foreigners and a deep source of public fascination, the Exhibition was closely connected with Queen Victoria’s consort, Prince Albert, who put much effort into having it sited in Hyde Park against stiff opposition. Protesters feared the disappearance of the park under tons of bricks and mortar, but when the great structure was eventually chosen and built, it silenced dissenters and became the most famous new building in the world. During its six months, the Exhibition’s 100,000 exhibits were seen by over 6 million people who came to celebrate Britain’s industrial ascendancy and sparked a renewed confidence in the possibilities of peaceful social progress. In The Great Exhibition, John R. Davis explores the organisation and implementation of the event, and delves into its wider significance and the historical debates surrounding it. Complete with insights into the event’s part in the construction of the modern world, this accessible history showcases the pinnacle of Victorian innovation.
Blood Countess
A March Indie Next Pick * A Barnes & Noble Most Anticipated Nonfiction Book of 2026 * A Barnes & Noble Reads Best Book of February 2026From the author of the national bestseller The Dark Queens, an incandescent work of true crime and feminist history about Elizabeth Bathory, the woman alleged to be the world’s most prolific female serial killer.There have long been whispers, coming from the castle; from the village square; from the dark woods. The great lady—a countess, from one of Europe''s oldest families—is a vicious killer. Some even say she bathes in the blood of her victims. When the king''s men force their way into her manor house, she has blood on her hands, caught in the act of murdering yet another of her maids. She is walled up in a tower and never seen again, except in the uppermost barred window, where she broods over the countryside, cursing all those who dared speak up against her.Told and retold in many languages, the legend of the Blood Countess has consumed cultural imaginations around the world. But despite claims that Elizabeth Bathory tortured and killed as many as 650 girls, some have wondered if the Countess was herself a victim— of one of the most successful disinformation campaigns known to history. So, was Elizabeth Bathory a monster, a victim, or a bit of both? With the breathlessness of a whodunit, drawing upon new archival evidence and questioning old assumptions, Shelley Puhak traces the Countess''s downfall, bringing to life an assertive woman leader in a world sliding into anti-scientific, reactionary darkness—a world where nothing is ever as it seems. In this exhilarating narrative, Puhak renders a vivid portrait of history’s most dangerous woman and her tumultuous time, revealing just how far we will go to destroy a woman in power.
Bookbindings
'Bookbindings: An Illustrated History' is full of beautiful images of bookbindings from the beginnings of the codex right up to the present day. The volume's beauty is matched by David Pearson's encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject. - Sara J Charles, Literary ReviewBindings have been an essential – and often beautiful – component of books since the codex form was invented 2,000 years ago. They make books work, but they also provide an opportunity for binders to display their skills. Until book trade processes were industrialised in the nineteenth century, every binding was a unique handcrafted object, no matter how simple or elaborate it now looks from the outside. Bindings have been made of all kinds of materials – calfskin, parchment, vellum, ivory, even silver – and embellished using many different techniques, to satisfy the wishes of owners from students to kings. The ways in which they were produced and decorated have evolved steadily over time, and many countries have their own distinctive traditions. Bindings may testify to the taste and social status of wealthy connoisseurs, or to the economic necessities of ordinary households. Because they can often be dated and localised, they also give us information about the histories of individual volumes. This lavishly illustrated book provides a fascinating history of the development of bookbindings from Roman times to the present day. Almost all the examples are chosen from the shelves of the Bodleian Library, showcasing the outstanding collection of historic bindings to be found there.
The Nuclear Age
'Few historians write with Serhii Plokhy’s authority, clarity or global vision... Essential reading, and a marvellous book' Peter FrankopanFrom the bestselling author of Chernobyl comes a sweeping history of the geopolitics behind the nuclear arms race, from the first atomic bomb to todayOn 16 July 1945, the Nuclear Age began with the explosion of the first atomic bomb and the words of J. Robert Oppenheimer: 'Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.'While the threat of mutually assured destruction kept a lid on a simmering and tense geopolitical landscape, events like the Chernobyl disaster and near-misses like the Cuban Missile Crisis showed that total destruction was only ever one malfunction, mistake, or miscommunication away. Now, as governments re-arm their nuclear arsenals, treaties designed to limit the acquisition and use of nuclear weapons fall away, and nuclear weapons come increasingly within reach of non-state actors, we are on the brink of a renaissance of the nuclear industry. In The Nuclear Age, acclaimed historian Serhii Plokhy paints an intricate picture of a world governed by fear. From the first artificial splitting of the atom in 1917 and the race to create the first atomic bomb in World War II, through the fraught arms race of the Cold War, to the imperialism, neo-colonial motivation and wars being waged today, the threat posed by nuclear weapons is as pertinent as ever. As he examines the motivations of key players, Plokhy confronts the crucial question of our age: what can we learn from the first nuclear arms race that can help us to stop the new one?
Roman Surrey
In AD 43, the area of south-east England now known as Surrey became part of the Roman Empire. The succeeding 400 years saw the development of settlements, roads, industry and a new administrative structure, with the foundation of London providing anew and lasting focus for the people of Surrey. In this fully revised and updated second edition of Roman Surrey, Dr David Bird combines both historical and the very latest archaeological evidence with topographical studies to build a vivid picture of life at the time, from villas and coinage to the interrelation of the people who lived there, and their beliefs and customs. The changing face of Surrey’s landscape is chartered, alongside an exploration of the theories relating to the development and eventual decline of Roman Surrey.
Rosslyn Chapel Revealed
‘Like Rosslyn itself, this book is rather delicious and I would urge anyone with an interest in the Scottish religious sensibility to read it.’ - Gerard CarruthersRosslyn Chapel Revealed offers the reader an increased understanding and respect for one of Europe’s finest pre-Reformation buildings. Rosslyn Chapel, with its foundations in the world of nature, still points bravely to the heavens. That there is mystery at Rosslyn Chapel, there can be no doubt. But it is not the mystery of the esoteric Gnostic variety, available only to the initiated few. Instead, it is knowledge, accessible to all, of the dynamic intertwining of the created world with the impulse towards self-fulfilment. Rosslyn Chapel Revealed shows that the chapel is first and foremost a Christian building, constructed in the traditions of the pre-Reformation Church for the celebration in word, gesture and music of the Divine Office and of the ultimate sacrifice Jesus Christ suffered on his cross for the salvation of the human race. The stunning beauty of the chapel, its unexpected delicacy and the uninhibited humour of its stone carvings, which have drawn visitors in such avid numbers from all over the world, are a tribute to the honesty and validity of the religious experience to be found within its ancient walls, in a breathtaking setting of valley and river that is older than time. ‘This lovely book is a counter to some of the silliness of recent years … an excellent and comprehensive introduction and a super memoir for anyone who has visited.’ - Maria Western, Inspires
Pridajte sa k nám na ceste časom s našou komplexnou kolekciou encyklopédií zaoberajúcich sa históriou. Táto kategória obsahuje všetko od praveku až po súčasnosť. Študujte historické udalosti, významné osobnosti, dôležité civilizácie a momenty, ktoré formovali svet, v ktorom žijeme dnes. Ideálne pre študentov, učiteľov, ako aj pre všeobecných historických nadšencov, naše encyklopédie sú zdrojom nevyčerpaných informácií a zábavného poznávania.
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