Najnovšie - Encyklopédie populárno-náučné - História strana 24 z 168

Maitland was the most able politician and diplomat during the lifetime of Mary Queen of Scots. It was he who master-minded the Scottish Reformation by breaking the ‘Auld Alliance’ with France, which presaged Scotland’s lasting union with England. Although he gained English support to defeat French troops defending Mary’s Scottish throne, he backed her return to Scotland, as the widowed Queen of France. His attempts to gain recognition for her as heir to the English crown were thwarted by her determined adherence to Catholicism. After her re-marriage, he spearheaded the plotting to bring down her objectionable husband, Lord Darnley, leading to his murder, after concluding that English and Scottish interests were best served by creating a Protestant regency for their son, Prince James. With encouragement from Cecil in England and the Protestant Lords in Scotland, he concocted evidence to implicate her in her husband’s murder, resulting in her imprisonment and deposition from the Scottish throne. Despite her escape to England, he remained personally loyal to her and attempted to conjure Scottish support for her restoration by backing her allies holding Edinburgh Castle on her behalf. When it fell in 1573, he resorted to suicide.

‘An extraordinary intervention. If you want to understand the stakes and the limitations of contemporary conflict over culture and colonial history this bold, provocative book is an indispensable resource’ Paul Gilroy, founding Director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Race and Racism at UCL‘Hicks’ must-read book describes how it was possible for a human skull to be made into a drinking cup and used in a genteel Oxford college, well into the 21st century, as if empire were an eternal state of nature . . . Read it to learn new ways to be anti-racist, abolitionist and to tell other stories than those commemorated by the monuments that surround us, from statues, to museums and the police’ Nicholas Mirzoeff, author of White Sight‘Brave and clear-sighted. Hicks opens up an extraordinary conversation between the past and the present. This is a book about falling statues, but so much more. It’s about how we’ve been lied to, and how we can approach the past with honesty. Hicks asks whether history and archaeology should be used to justify actions we know impinge on the rights of others - or to understand ourselves better’ Alice Roberts, bestselling author of Crypt ‘Dan Hicks writes with grace and fierce focus about what we choose to remember and why, in our patterns of thought, our institutions and the built environment in which we live’ Eyal Weizman, director of Forensic ArchitectureThe culture war is over. If you want it to be. It wasn’t even a culture war; it was a war on culture. A sustained attack, Dan Hicks argues, in the form of the weaponisation of civic museums, public art, and even universities — and one that has a deeper history than you might think. Tracing the origins of contemporary conflicts over art, heritage, memory, and colonialism, Every Monument Will Fall joins the dots between the building of statues, the founding of academic disciplines like archaeology and anthropology, and the warehousing of stolen art and human skulls in museums — including the one in which he is a curator. Part history, part biography, part excavation, the story runs from the Yorkshire wolds to the Crimean War, from southern Ireland to the frontline of the American Civil War, from the City of London to the University of Oxford — revealing enduring legacies of militarism, slavery, racism and white supremacy hardwired into the heart of our cultural institutions. Every Monument Will Fall offers an urgent reappraisal of how we think about culture, and how to find hope, remembrance and reconciliation in the fragments of an unfinished violent past. Refusing to choose between pulling down every statue, or living in a past that we can never change, the book makes the case for allowing monuments to fall once in a while, even those that are hard to see as monuments, rebuilding a memory culture that is in step with our times.

Why did the Soviet Union hide the facts surrounding the death of Adolf Hitler at the end of the Second World War? Australian documentary-producer Cyril Jones provides a fascinating insight into how one woman had the courage to take on the Soviet bureaucracy to get the truth to the West, and how his ground-breaking documentary on the Führer’s death enabled her to do it. Only slowly and reluctantly did the Soviets let the light in on the events which occurred in bunker of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin in 1945; it was Elena Rzhevskaya who prised open the archival vault. Rzhevskaya was a Russian military translator who was the first to speak with those still alive in the bunker within minutes of Soviet soldiers taking control of it. Her first words to them was: ‘Where is Hitler?’ Told that he was dead and his body set alight, she demanded to know where his body was. She then set about unravelling the mystery of the death of the Führer, but as soon as she discovered the whole story Soviet leader Josef Stalin instructed her to ‘keep her mouth shut’. He wanted to keep the secret to himself. Because of that the Western Allies were fed lies, it even being suggested that Hitler might still be alive. It took another twenty years of digging for the truth to come out. Rzhevskaya herself was responsible for that, having dedicated herself to lifting the veil of secrecy and ensuring the world knew of Stalin’s duplicity. In this book Cyril Jones reveals how he managed to get previously unseen film footage from the Soviet and Russian archives, material which helped reveal the facts. The author also details interviews with Elena Rzhevskaya which shows the paths she took to tell the real story. The Hunt for Hitler expands upon our understanding of those momentous days following the end of the Second World War and provides an absorbing insight into the background surrounding the fate of Hitler’s body as the chilling blast of the Cold War swept across Europe.

The death penalty was accepted almost universally until the eighteenth century, when Giuseppe Pelli of Florence and Cesare Beccaria of Milan produced works calling for its abolition. Why was this form of punishment so integrated into laws and customary practices? And what is the pre-history of the arguments in favour of its abolition? This book is the first to trace the origins of these ideas, beginning with the Lex Talionis in the Code of Hammurabi and moving across the Bible, Plato, to the Renaissance, and the emergence of utilitarianism in the 18th century. It also explores how the advance of the abolition of the death penalty was held up for a time in Britain, and stalled, apparently permanently, in America. Peter Garnsey ranges across philosophy, theology, law, and politics to provide a balanced and accessible overview of the beliefs about crime and punishment that underlay the arguments of the first abolitionists. This study is a compelling and original contribution to the history of ideas about capital punishment.

Everyone loves adventure, mystery and the notion of celebrity and this book combines all of these with new unpublished material, supported by high quality previously unpublished images. Aviation history is full of evocative stories about the evolution of aeroplanes; flying and the perils of air travel and there are many ways of looking at these. The theme of this book is to recall some of those perils through the eyes of twenty-three internationally-famous celebrity air travellers between 1919 and 2020. What brings them all together here is that, as well as presenting the personalities, the stories showcase aeroplanes from the golden age of biplanes to helicopters, biz-jets and airliners. They also illustrate the fallibility of people and technology, while giving a flavour of the social progress of air transport over the past 100 years. Sadly, the climax of these particular stories culminates in air crashes that took the lives of the celebrities involved. While the final selection of the stars might be open to debate, the breadth of celebrity representation in these stories is very wide, being drawn from the fields of aeronautics; cinema; exploration; fashion; music; politics and sport. Mysteries and myths have grown up around some of these incidents and while some of these can be debunked, others will pose unanswered questions. All, though, will demonstrate that Fame and Fortune alone are no protection from Fate.

On the night of 25 September 1829, the jewels of the Princess of Orange disappeared from her palace in Brussels. Suspicion quickly fell on her husband, Prince Willem of Orange, a Waterloo veteran known to be deeply in debt. But when the police failed to find any witnesses or leads, the investigation ground to a halt. In 1831, Anna Pavlovna’s jewels surfaced in New York in the hands of a former Napoleonic deserter named Constant Polari. Dutch officials scrambled to reclaim the jewels and extradite Polari, hoping a public trial would clear their prince’s name. But President Andrew Jackson’s customs collector preferred to confiscate the jewels, sell them, and pocket his share of the proceeds. When Polari’s lover dug up a buried portion of the gems and sailed for Europe, it triggered a race across the Atlantic, a kidnapping from Bellevue prison, and a sensational trial with a last-minute twist. True crime meets royal history in this long-forgotten caper that pitted the old world’s diplomacy against the new world’s self-determinism. Drawing on previously neglected case documents and sources in five languages, the tale of Anna Pavlovna’s stolen jewels unfolds against a backdrop of war, revolution, corruption, and betrayal.

No other twentieth-century political figure endured so many precipitous falls followed by unlikely resurrection. Across fifty turbulent years he enjoyed – if that is the correct term - at least four separate, high-level, political careers interspersed with periods in the doldrums. As one of his numerous enemies and detractors, of whom there was never a shortage, was to write: Winston is never down, or rather will never allow that he is down.’Whilst much has been written about Churchill at the Admiralty, and even more concerning his wartime premiership, the ups and downs in-between have received somewhat less attention. Hence this volume, which seeks to tell the tale of the period beginning with him being unceremoniously sacked in 1915. As Lloyd George’s mistress and confidante wrote: ‘It seems strange that Churchill should have been in politics all these years, & yet not have won the confidence of a single party in the country, or a single colleague in the Cabinet.’She was mistaken. One politician still valued Churchill’s gifts: the Prime Minister from 1916, David Lloyd George himself. But he had to act cautiously. Only in July 1917, during a broader reshuffle, did he dare risk appointing Churchill as Minister of Munitions. This was a courageous move. As one Tory grandee put it: ‘some of us myself included only joined L[loyd] G[eorge] on the distinct understanding that W[inston] Ch[urchill] was not to be a member of the Gov[ernmen]t.’Lloyd George got away with it however, and few would dispute that his judgement was vindicated. As the man responsible for providing the British and wider Allied cause with the munitions of war, a vast undertaking by any standards, Churchill proved both competent and effective. Indeed, he was still in post at the end of the conflict in 1918, which is where this book ends.

Although also known as the Third English Civil War, the author makes it clear that this was the last war between the Scots and English as separate states. He narrates in detail the the events following the exiled King Charles II’s landing in Scotland and his alliance with the Scots Covenanters, erstwhile allies of the English Parliamentarians. Cromwell’s preemptive invasion of Scotland led to the Battle of Dunbar, a crushing defeat for the Scots under David Leslie, though this only unified the Scottish cause and led to the levying of the Army of the Kingdom under Charles II himself. Charles II led a desperate counter-invasion over the border, hoping to raise a royalist rebellion and forcing Cromwell to follow him, though he left Monck to complete the pacification of Scotland. Cromwell caught up with Charles II at Worcester, where the Scots/Royalist army was decisively defeated and destroyed, thousands of the prisoners being sold into slavery in the West Indies and the American colonies. This revised and updated edition contains an expanded chapter on the aftermath of the war and the fate of the POWs, drawing on major new archaeological evidence, as well as an expanded Conclusion.

In the aftermath of civil war, often the most daunting task is to reconcile former opponents who continue to demand justice--or even vengeance--for wartime suffering. Remembering the Wars of Religion offers a historical perspective on the painful legacy of civil war by focusing on memories of violence and victimhood after the French Wars of Religion. Officially, these wars ended in 1598, when the Edict of Nantes proclaimed peaceful coexistence between Catholics and Protestants, and ordered them to bury the memory of the troubles that had begun in 1562. Below the surface, however, the conflict would simmer for generations, as neither side was able to forgive and forget the violence they had suffered. Moving away from the corridors of state power in Paris to the cities of Lyon, Montpellier, and La Rochelle, Remembering the Wars of Religion examines the local memory wars between Catholics and Protestants as they resurfaced throughout the seventeenth century. David van der Linden shows that the Wars of Religion left behind a kingdom divided by memory: Catholics and Protestants developed sectarian narratives of the troubles, victimizing their own community while assigning blame to the other. The massacres, looting, material losses, and forced displacement that had punctuated the wars proved impossible to forget, let alone forgive, as vindictive memories were continuously reconstructed by later generations. This constant weaponizing of the past undermined the state-led process of peacebuilding and the practice of toleration in France's biconfessional communities. Ultimately, these memories of victimhood fed a new cycle of violence during the reign of Louis XIV, who in 1685 revoked the Edict of Nantes and forced his Protestant subjects to convert to Catholicism. Remembering the Wars of Religion thus offers a fresh perspective on the challenge of religious coexistence and reconciliation, both past and present. It shows that besides state policies of intolerance and ideological differences rooted in the Reformation, it was the manipulation of wartime memories by subsequent generations that fuelled long-term animosity. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

Amphibious Warfare Post WWII is a collection of essays and articles written for various military publications during the author’s 32 years’ service. Following retirement he was able to express his opinions and views in a rather more forthright manner as the Editor of Jane’s Amphibious and Special Forces. As a renowned practitioner of amphibious operations much of what he has to say remains relevant and seminal to this day. The author also describes his time as a European Community Monitor in the Former Yugoslavia (from which he resigned after being ordered to falsify his daily reports to Brussels) and his experiences as a company commander during the Dhofar War.

The year 135 BC saw the outbreak of the so-called ‘First Servile War’, which proved to be just the first of a series of conflicts that ravaged the Roman Republic during the following century and changed forever the institutions of the Roman state. This bloody and violent period of civil wars and recurrent slave revolts (most famously that of Spartacus) saw the ascendancy of many famous generals who obtained great military victories, including: Marius, Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Octavian. They fought for complete dominance over Rome but, at the same time, conducted a series of imperialist campaigns that greatly expanded the territorial extension of the Roman Republic. In discussing these campaigns of conquest, the author shows how they were strongly linked with the civil conflicts and how the events that started in 135 BC progressively led to the birth of the Roman Empire under Octavian (Augustus). The author also describes the only civil war taking place during the Early Empire, i.e. that of AD 69 (‘The Year of the Four Emperors’) before providing a detailed description of the organization and equipment of the varied military forces that took part in the Roman civil wars during this crucial period, outlining crucial developments across the period. As usual for the Armies of the Past series, there are dozens of colour photos depicting replica arms, armour and dress in use.

On 3 September 1650 Oliver Cromwell won a decisive victory over the Scottish Covenanters at the Battle of Dunbar – a victory that is often regarded as his finest hour – but the aftermath, the forced march of 5,000 prisoners from the battlefield to Durham, was one of the cruellest episodes in his career.The march took them seven days, without food and with little water, no medical care, the property of a ruthless regime determined to eradicate any possibility of further threat. Those who survived long enough to reach Durham found no refuge, only pestilence and despair. Exhausted, starving and dreadfully weakened, perhaps as many as 1,700 died from typhus and dysentery. Those who survived were condemned to hard labour and enforced exile in conditions of virtual slavery in a harsh new world across the Atlantic.Cromwell''s Convicts describes their ordeal in detail and, by using archaeological evidence, brings the story right up to date. John Sadler and Rosie Serdiville describe the battle at Dunbar, but their main focus is on the lethal week-long march of the captives that followed. They make extensive use of archive material, retrace the route taken by the prisoners and describe the recent archaeological excavations in Durham which have identified some of the victims and given us a graphic reminder of their fate.

Many aspire to serve with the Special Air Service, arguably the world’s most prestigious regiment, but few achieve their aim. In this inspiring memoir the author describes how he left school without any qualifications and embarked on a 30 year career much of it spent in Hereford, including four years in ‘The Regiment’. Against the odds he rose through the ranks before being commissioned and eventually retiring as a Major. Initially attached to 22 SAS as a signaller, he volunteered for and passed ‘Selection’, the most gruelling and demanding of tests. He was posted to D Squadron Boat Troop with whom he saw active service in the Falklands War, Northern Ireland and the UK counter-terrorist team. Thanks to the diary he kept during the Falklands War, the reader is treated to a gripping first-hand account of the intense action that he and his colleagues experienced, including recces, diversionary attacks, raids and ambushes both on South Georgia and the Falklands Islands. Later he commanded the Royal Signals troop supporting D Squadron, 22 SAS before commissioning and later on pursuing a second career as a security consultant in various Middle Eastern hotspots. It is a privilege to read this commendably modest account of one man’s unique career which provides a fascinating insight into elite special forces soldiering.

The Civil Wars of the seventeenth century had a devastating effect upon Wales and the Marches, stripping the country of its human resources and ruining whole communities. This book explores the years of conflict between 1642 and 1649, detailing the campaigns, sieges and battles which took place in every corner of the country, presenting information from a wide variety of sources to paint a wide-ranging picture of the nation at a significant turning point in its history.

Why did a long time reluctant US President Wilson finally enter World War I on the side of the Allies in April 1917?In retaliation of the British naval blockade of Germany since August 1914, the German Admirals determined at the beginning of 1915 to create a counter-blockade of the British Isles with their submarines. The U-boat commanders got – without knowledge of the government - a secret order to sink Allied passenger liners. The British Admiralty discovered the hunt for passenger liners by deciphering W/T messages to the U-boats. The sinking of the Lusitania on May, 6th, 1915, was no coincidence – the Royal Navy knew about the intentions of the U-boats and, after doing everything to protect the passenger liners in the beginning, they simply left the Lusitania alone in in the first week of May, to create frictions between America and the German Empire. A diplomatic quarrel between US President Wilson and Germany about U-boat warfare commenced. In spring of 1916 the German Navy acted again against the instructions of the Kaiser and ordered secretly the sinking of allied and neutral vessels in the British Channel, thereby opening an unrestricted U-boat war. When the channel ferry Sussex was attacked, Wilson threatened to break off of diplomatic relations with Germany. Under massive diplomatic pressure the German government had to give in. Further on, their U-boats only conducted a “soft”, restricted warfare, following the internationally agreed maritime rules and tolerated by Wilson. In Germany a heated debate set in after the Sussex case. The Navy promised the quick defeat of England by unrestricted U-boat war, and the Army joined this campaign end of 1916. The intention of the “war party” was to rule out any possibility of a negotiated peace and to set the German Empire on a – risky - course for definitive victory. But the government doubted the Navy’s capability for all-out U-boat warfare and argued that the only definitive result would be an America siding the Allies, leading to ultimate defeat. In the last months of 1916 it sent out peace feelers to Wilson, warning him, that in the case of a failure of his peace mediation they would get under unbearable pressure of the “military opposition” to begin unrestricted U-boat war again. At this time Britain was – like Germany – economically with its back against the wall: it suffered terribly by the sinking of its merchant ships, the moral of its Admiralty in Anti-Submarine-Warfare had completely broken down. Collapse was threatening. But the British government got wind of the conflicts inside Germany by the deciphering of the diplomatic cables between Wilson and the Germans. The new Prime Minster, David Lloyd George, chose a risky strategy – by rebuffing all American peace efforts he wanted to encourage the radical party in Germany to enforce total U-boat war. Finally this British strategy payed out: German Navy and Army pressed the Kaiser to declare unrestricted U-boat war from 1st of February 1917 on, and Wilson broke off diplomatic relations. But he still bristled to enter the war on Allied side – as long as American ships would be treated correctly by the Germans, he wouldn’t come in, not even after the publication of the Zimmermann-telegram. The tipping point came in the middle of March, when U-boats torpedoed American vessels without warning. This forced the American Declaration of War against the German Empire on April 6, 1917.

Cretan Chronicle: An Archaeological Childhood is about love and stoicism.As a young child, Mary is uprooted from her home in Crete among an archaeological community and resettles in England. Revisiting Crete each year, Mary begins to assist her father, Sinclair Hood, in his fieldwork. The ruined Palace of Minos transforms from her playground into her workplace. Sinclair struggles to publish excavation reports, preferring to revel in media acclaim. Burying family stories, he wrestles with pacifism and his Anglo-Catholic faith. Mary sets out to study architecture, and mixes pleasure and jealousy in a tangled love triangle with an artist-poet. She must learn to forsake lust, stop working for Sinclair, and figure her way out of her own Labyrinth.Steeped in the myths of Zeus and his daughter Athena, and born in Greece, but not Greek, Mary interweaves themes of identity, trauma and redemption with stories of fickle deities and the regenerative power of nature. She unearths her archaeological family’s secrets with riveting intricacy to give a unique perspective on her father’s unusual upbringing by a capricious wealthy mother, as well as his loves and career.Appealing to readers interested in mid-20th century archaeological lives, Cretan Chronicle sparkles with clarity and humour—strengthened and nurtured by the bright Mediterranean sun.

The period 133-44BC, bookended by the murders of Tiberius Gracchus and Julius Caesar, was one of profound political change in the Roman world. Aspects of the Late Roman Republic, 133-44BC: Dipping into Cicero’s ‘Romulan Cesspool’ collects a series of 58 essays on various events and people of that era that can frequently be overlooked in larger works. The chapters appear in a variety of approaches and lengths. Some look at humorous happenings, others investigate interesting personages and events – examples include a look at Cato the Younger possibly interviewing a pharaoh whilst sitting on the lavatory, an inventor and house ‘flipper’ called Sergius Orata, the revolt of Lepidus, and the fixing of an election. While aiming to be interesting and entertaining, the entries can also serve as jumping-off points for more in-depth study. To facilitate this, each chapter lists the secondary sources used in its creation, which doubles as ‘Further Reading’. So, if you want more on the Gracchi, Marius, Sulla, Rome’s wars (internal and external), political trials, revolts or another subject addressed within, help is provided. There are also three subcollections interspersed throughout the compilation – the Catonic Interludes, which look at aspects of the career of Cato the Younger; Caesarian Setbacks, which look at battlefield defeats inflicted on Caesar and his lieutenants, while Avenging the Triumvirs looks at the fates of the men involved in the murders of Crassus, Pompey and Caesar. Looking at the Contents, you would be forgiven for thinking that ‘The Murder of…’ and ‘The Trial of…’ were also subcategories given how often chapters could be summed up in that manner…But then this Ancient Rome after all…

Gerald Gliddon’s classic survey of the Somme battlefield in 1916, first published in 1987 to great acclaim, has been greatly expanded and updated to include the latest research and analysis. Supported by a wide selection of archive photographs and drawing on the testimony of those who took part, this new edition covers the famous battle sites, such as High Wood and Mametz Wood, as well as the lesser-known villages on the outlying flanks. It includes a day-by-day account of the British build-up on the Somme and the ensuing struggle; British and German orders of battle; and a full history of the cemeteries and memorials, both ‘lost’ and current, that sprang up in the years following the First World War. Gliddon also provides thumbnail biographies of all the senior officers to fall, the winners of the Victoria Cross and those who were ‘shot at dawn’, as well as Somme ‘personalities’ such as George Butterworth. Somme 1916 honours the sacrifices made by the people who fought in one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War.

In 1940 British forces were withdrawn from the Channel Islands, allowing the Germans to occupy British territory. Hitler was determined to hold onto what he saw as a valuable prize, and the islands were heavily fortified. However, despite being extensively defended, the occupied Channel Islands remained vulnerable to commando-style raids. Indeed, a total of nine such operations were conducted between 1940 and 1943. Many others were planned but never executed. Each one was a bold and dangerous expedition, with small groups of men daring to trespass on Hitler’s cherished British stronghold. The first of these attacks, Operation Ambassador, took place on the night of 14/15 July 1940. The second ever raid undertaken by the Commandos, it was focused on the island of Guernsey. Though the mission failed to achieve any of its objectives, valuable lessons were learnt. In the weeks, months and years that followed, raids were also undertaken against Jersey, Sark, Herm, Burhou and the Casquets lighthouse off Alderney. The final attack, Hardtack 22, was one of the three carried out against the German garrison on Sark. After the second mission, Hardtack 7, had to be aborted, the Commandos returned to the island on the night of 26/27 December 1943, tasked with undertaking a reconnaissance and capturing prisoners. This too was a failure after the raiders entered a minefield; two men were killed and most of the others wounded. Compiled from official reports and first-hand accounts, each of the raids is packed with intrigue and drama – including the fear of reprisals being taken against the islanders. Each of the missions are explored on the ground today by the authors, with the routes taken and all key locations relating to each attack photographed and described. The planned but never executed raids are also explored. Never before have these stories been told in such detail, and never before in the words of those that took part in the raids and those who, ultimately, were most affected.