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Ireland: Mapping the Island
Hodges Figgis Book of the Year for 2025Shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards History Book of the YearMaps allow us to see how the world is organised spatially and show us relationships which cannot be understood from simply reading a text. This magnificent book highlights a vast selection of maps that range across the centuries and cover every part of the island, shedding light on the history and development of Ireland. The themes are many and varied, from conquest and colonisation, the management of the landscape, natural resources, meeting the needs of tourists, transport, the growth of urban centres as well as exploring how others saw Ireland, and much more besides. Carefully selected by two noted map experts, this highly visual book tells the story of Ireland in a unique and stimulating way.
Five Thousand Years of Monarchy
Offers a sweeping, entertaining journey through the real power structures of world history Five Thousand Years of Monarchy challenges everything you thought you knew about political history. With wit, clarity, and a deep command of historical detail, Michael Arnheim reframes five millennia of global governance through a strikingly original lens: the idea that every government, from ancient Sumer to modern China, is either a monarchy or an oligarchy—regardless of its name or apparent ideology. This provocative framework reveals insights into some of history's greatest puzzles and personalities, from the Roman emperors to Castro's Cuba, Augustus to Queen Victoria, and from Louis XVI's missed opportunity to the untold powers of King Philip II. Drawing on lively anecdotes, surprising facts, and colorful historical vignettes, Arnheim brings the power struggles of the past vividly to life. Why was Imperial China more stable than any modern democracy? Could World War I have been avoided by more autocracy? And why are aristocracies more hostile to monarchs than revolutions ever were? Engaging, opinionated, and highly readable, Five Thousand Years of Monarchy offers a powerful reminder that what really matters in politics isn't titles or constitutions—it's who holds the power, and how. Presenting a bold and original reinterpretation of world history through the lens of power structure, Five Thousand Years of Monarchy: Distills all governments—ancient and modern—into just two essential types: monarchy or oligarchyProvides a global scope, covering rulers and regimes from every major civilization Reveals little-known historical facts, such as King Philip II of Spain's reign as King of EnglandOffers original, counterintuitive takes on major events such as the French Revolution and World War IExplores the surprising longevity and success of the Roman and Chinese empires Challenges conventional narratives and political assumptions with evidence-based analysis Written in an engaging, accessible, and often humorous style, Five Thousand Years of Monarchy is ideal for general readers with an interest in history, politics, or leadership, as well as students and instructors in History, Classics, and Political Science.
Augustus The Strong
From the acclaimed author of The Pursuit of Glory and Frederick the Great, a riotous biography of the charismatic ruler of 18th-century Poland and Saxony - and his catastrophic reign.''It''s been a superb year for history but Augustus the Strong ranks up there with the very very best! I cant recommend it strongly enough'' - Simon Sebag-Montefiore''The wonderful story of one of the worst monarchs in European history, told with enormous wit and scholarship by a supremely talented historian. If you have the slightest interest in Germans, Poles, porcelain, jewels, the Enlightenment, military disasters or the pleasures of fox-tossing, then this is the book for you'' - Dominic Sandbrook*Shortlisted for the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography 2025*Augustus is one of the great what-ifs of the 18th century. He could have turned the accident of ruling two major realms into the basis for a powerful European state – a bulwark against the Russians and a block on Prussian expansion. Alas, there was no opportunity Augustus did not waste and no decision he did not get wrong. By the time of his death Poland was fatally damaged and would subsequently disappear as an independent state until the 20th century.Tim Blanning’s wonderfully entertaining and original new book is a study in failed statecraft, showing how a ruler can shape history as much by incompetence as brilliance. Augustus’s posthumous sobriquet ‘The Strong’ referred not to any political accomplishment, but to his legendary physical strength and sexual athleticism.Yet he was also one of the great creative artists of the age, combining driving energy, exquisite taste and apparently boundless resources to master-mind the creation of peerless Dresden, the baroque jewel of jewels. Augustus the Strong brilliantly evokes this time of opulence and excess, decadence and folly.
The Revolutionists
In the 1970s, a network of radical extremists terrorised the West with plane hijackings and hostage-takings. Among them were the beautiful young Leila Khaled with her jewellery made from grenade rings, the hard-drinking philanderer Carlos the Jackal sporting shades and open-neck shirts, and the radical leftists of the Baader-Meinhof Gang. They sought to liberate the Palestinians and overthrow western imperialism, orchestrating spectacularly violent attacks that held governments to ransom and the world gripped to their television screens.Drawing on decades of research, declassified archive material and original interviews with witnesses and participants, Jason Burke provides a masterful account of their exploits over the course of this dark decade. From the Munich Olympics and the raid on Entebbe to the Iranian Embassy Siege in London and the Beirut bombings of the early 1980s, he takes us into the lives and minds of the perpetrators of these attacks, as well as the government agents who sought to thwart and assassinate them. In the process, he shows how the extreme fringe of a secular, leftist, revolutionary movement ultimately birthed something altogether different and far more lethal: the violent expression of a fanatically conservative religious zealotry.Gripping, globe-spanning and pulsing with drama, The Revolutionists is the definitive account of the decade when terrorism took to the skies and transformed the world.
Az ég atlasza
Az ég atlasza kozmikus térképek, történetek, festmények és tárgyak gyűjteménye, amely segít megismernünk az emberiségnek az éggel és a távoli világokkal összefüggő fantáziáit és felfedezéseit. Miközben a szerző meghökkentő tények és meglepő illusztrációk sokaságával tárja elénk az ég katográfiájának kincsestárát, felölelve a legjelentősebb csillagászati felfedezéseket, a legbizarrabb mítoszokat és az emberiség történetének már elfeledett epizódjait, egy egyedülállóan szép, ugyanakkor szórakoztató ismeretterjesztő munkát hozott létre. Arisztotelész világképétől Einsteinen át a legújabb csillagközi felfedezésekig terjedően ez a nagyívű áttekintés kitér ősi ufóészlelésekre, fantáziákra a szárnyas holdlakókról, a felhők felett hullámzó tenger koncepciójára és egy Edward-kori arisztokrata különös történetére is, aki az élet jeleit vélte felfedezni a Marson.
Australian Heroes of World War II
When Australians defended against Rommel’s tanks at Tobruk and Alamein, tackled paratroopers landing among them on Crete, attacked French Foreign Legionnaires in Syrian forts, held off Japanese tanks in Malaya, fought hand-to-hand on the Kokoda Track, and took on well-hidden and tenacious Japanese soldiers in countless grim jungle locations, brave individuals risked everything to bring victory. Australian soldiers performed acts of remarkable bravery in the roles of stretcher-bearers and snipers, in victories and defeats, and in desert and jungle. Men like the truck driver who took on 22 Japanese fighters with his fists and Owen gun and won. Such astonishing deeds were often rewarded with medals, but many brave deeds went unrecognised, and whether acknowledged or not, the heroes often paid a heavy price for their courageous acts, in the form of physical injury, psychological trauma or death. In Australian Heroes of World War II, leading Australian military historian Mark Johnston shines a new light on the the courage of individual soldiers across every battle in which Australians fought in World War II.
Planning Labour
Impoverished, indebted, and underdeveloped at the close of World War II, Romania underwent dramatic changes as part of its transition to a centrally planned economy. As with the Soviet experience, it pursued a policy of “primitive socialist accumulation” whereby the state appropriated agricultural surplus and restricted workers’ consumption in support of industrial growth. Focusing on the daily operations of planning in the ethnically mixed city of Cluj from 1945 to 1955, this book argues that socialist accumulation was deeply contradictory: it not only inherited some of the classical tensions of capital accumulation, but also generated its own, which derived from the multivocal nature of the state socialist worker as a creator of value, as living labour, and as a subject of emancipatory politics.
An Archaeology of Unchecked Capitalism
The racialization of immigrant labor and the labor strife in the coal and textile communities in northeastern Pennsylvania appears to be an isolated incident in history. Rather this history can serve as a touchstone, connecting the history of the exploited laborers to today’s labor in the global economy. By drawing parallels between the past and present – for example, the coal mines of the nineteenth-century northeastern Pennsylvania and the sweatshops of the twenty-first century in Bangladesh – we can have difficult conversations about the past and advance our commitment to address social justice issues.
City of dreadful night
This unorthodox book is more than a story; it blends scholarship, fantasy, travelogue, and autobiography—fusing and overlapping historical accounts and newscasts, literary texts and films, dreams and nocturnal tales. Siegel uses imagination to explore the relation of real terror to horror fiction and to contemplate the ways fear and disgust become thrilling elements in stories of the macabre. This book is the product of Siegel’s deep knowledge of both Indian and Western literary and philosophical traditions. It is also an attempt to come to grips with the omnipresence of political and religious terror in contemporary India.
Mountain Gunner
In October 1939, eighteen-year-old Tony Fowle took a day off school to enlist. Twelve years later, he was a decorated officer in the Royal Artillery, winning the Military Cross for gallantry in war-torn Korea. This extraordinary memoir - drawn from Tony's own vivid letters - traces his transformation from raw recruit to seasoned soldier. In 1942, he narrowly survived the brutal Battle of Knightsbridge in the Western Desert, before an unexpected posting to the Indian Army opened up a life of astonishing contrasts: desert warfare, Himalayan frontiers, and riding with mountain artillery units that seemed torn from the pages of Kipling. From dusty camps to palatial bungalows, and from 'scraps' in Kashmir to the bitter cold of Korea, Tony's story is one of personal liberation, loyalty and adventure on a truly global scale. Along the way, it sheds fresh light on two of the 20th century's lesser-known conflicts - and on a life lived with courage and curiosity in equal measure.
Bengal in global concept history
Today people all over the globe invoke the concept of culture to make sense of their world, their social interactions, and themselves. But how did the culture concept become so ubiquitous? In this ambitious study, Andrew Sartori closely examines the history of political and intellectual life in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Bengal to show how the concept can take on a life of its own in different contexts. Sartori weaves the narrative of Bengal’s embrace of culturalism into a worldwide history of the concept, from its origins in eighteenth-century Germany, through its adoption in England in the early 1800s, to its appearance in distinct local guises across the non-Western world. The impetus for the concept’s dissemination was capitalism, Sartori argues, as its spread across the globe initiated the need to celebrate the local and the communal.
On Shoreless Sea
Combines new archival research with innovative theory to reassess the ship's dramatic voyage and analyze its representation in a broad range of texts, films, and artifacts of popular memory. Finalist for the 2025 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in the History categoryIn 1939, the ocean liner MS St. Louis undertook a dramatic voyage with over nine hundred Jewish refugees that caught the world's attention and has been remembered in numerous printed texts, films, and artifacts. Denied permission to dock in Cuba, the United States, and Canada, the ship was finally forced to return to Europe, where many of teh refugees ultimately perished in the Holocaust. On Shoreless Sea is the first work to comprehensively analyze the journey's unfolding, its historical context, and its key representations in various media. Based on new archival research and featuring a translation of Captain Gustav Schröder's account of the voyage, the book corrects long-standing misassumptions about its subject. Author Roy Grundmann illuminates the voyage's historical significance and demonstrates its relevance to our present, in which prosperous nations once again stem mass migration. Arguing that the Jewish refugee crisis was caused not only by anti-Semitism but also by colonialism and neocolonialism, Grundmann calls for Holocaust studies to expand its field of inquiry and methodology. Working at the intersection of Holocaust studies, postcolonial theory, film and media studies, and cultural studies, On Shoreless Sea reads St. Louis memory culture as a reservoir of contradictory attitudes toward migration whose texts both intentionally and inadvertently testify to the need to discuss the Holocaust in relation to other genocides without denying its uniqueness.
Operation Desert Storm
“During Desert Storm the Air Force and the Armor forces were the thunder but the 101st was the lightning.” General Norman Schwarzkopf, April, 1991. Camp Eagle II, Saudi ArabiaOperation Desert Storm chronicles perhaps the most incredible story of the Gulf War that has never been told. It describes two young soldiers from the intelligence section of 1-327 Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, Captain Jose Delgado and Sergeant Jesus Gonzalez, who unlocked an intelligence puzzle none of their higher headquarters recognized. This pivotal discovery occurred after the finalization of the 101st Airborne’s plans for attacking into Iraq and altered the direction of Desert Storm.1-327 Infantry was also the lead unit of what became the largest air assault (by helicopter) in US history. The 101st Airborne was a unique army division because of the 300+ helicopters in its arsenal. General Schwarzkopf''s "Hail Mary" plan, to use the 101st to air assault deep into Iraq and cut the Euphrates Valley, was the boldest operational maneuver for the US Military since the Inchon landing in Korea in 1950. Schwarzkopf''s plan stretched the division’s capabilities to their limits and demonstrated the 101st Airborne’s strengths and weaknesses. CPT Jose Delgado and SGT Jesus Gonzalez discovered the fatal intelligence flaw, an enemy battalion’s bunker-trench complex in 1-327 Infantry’s lead company''s landing zone. Their discovery, 48 hours before the air assault, caused the division''s plan to be altered, although it was a significant challenge to do so. Without their discovery, the attack was destined for disaster.In writing the book, Colonel Frank Hancock, Battalion Commander of 1-327 Infantry, asked soldiers from across the battalion to provide narratives and their recollections of what happened, thereby providing a full view of what occurred and why, from the perspective of soldiers ranging in rank from private to colonel. The book also details the process of how the US Army learned from its experiences in Vietnam, made changes, and became a different, structured, and more lethal army in the post-Vietnam era.
Queen Victoria's Colonial Troops, 1837-1901
Queen Victoria famously presided over an empire upon which the sun never set. Extending, defending and policing Britain’s global territories required the British Army to fight a bewildering array of foes, in equally varied terrain and climates. From the subarctic mountains of Canada to the Sahara Desert and the South African veldt, from the jungles of West Africa and central India to China, the British forces flew the flag. The task was only made possible by the recruitment of troops from throughout the colonies, some of which then served far from home (such as the Australians used in the Boer Wars). Colonial troops not only boosted the numbers available to the Empire’s forces but their local knowledge of climate and terrain, as well as their differing fighting styles, offered vital variety and flexibility. This allowed the ‘British’ armies to adapt to the wide range of enemies and environments encountered.Gabriele Esposito offers an excellent overview of the troops raised from every corner of the British Empire, discussing their organization, weapons, uniform and equipment as well as how and where they were employed. The informative text is lavishly illustrated with colour artworks.
Variations of the Hero's Journey in Contemporary British, French and Australian Picture Books about the Great War
This book is grounded in the belief that every nation had its own ‘Great War’, and that children’s picture books are an important barometer of each country’s national approach. To explore the depiction of the Great War in modern Australian, British, and French children’s picture books, where this historical event is reimagined in different ways as a futile conflict, as a painful victory, and as part of one country’s founding mythology, this book uses the concept of the hero’s journey as an underlying framework. It claims that this monomythic pattern, as developed by Joseph Campbell and modified by Christopher Vogler, not only informs all picture books selected for this project but can also be used to highlight the extent to which modern children’s picture book authors and illustrators conform to their respective nation’s cultural memory. It further maintains that the specific historical context of the Great War in these children’s picture books can be used to identify a variant of the hero’s journey: the ‘ordinary soldier’s journey’. This analysis of children’s picture books about the Great War through the lens of Campbell’s hero’s journey will be of interest to both students and researchers in the fields of children’s literature, literary theory, history, cultural studies, and education.
Tanks on the Streets?
At 12.08pm on Friday 31 January 1919, Margaret Buchanan drives her tram into George Square in Glasgow’s city centre. She slows down to avoid the youths and men holding their arms up to stop her; some even jump onto the front of her tram. Swirling around her tram is a sea of heavy-coated men who have been on strike since Monday, demanding a reduction to a forty-hour working week. Crucially, the tram workers have not joined the strike; they are being abused as ‘scabs’. Constables and officers of Glasgow’s police force use their hands to try to part the crowd to allow the tram to proceed, but their efforts fail and batons are drawn.Within minutes, the violence will have spread across and beyond the Square; men will have been injured; the Sheriff will have read the Riot Act; strike leaders will lie stunned and bleeding inside the City Chambers; policemen and protestors will lie beaten in the streets.The violence and destruction in the Square, the streets to the north and south, in Glasgow Green and even south of the River Clyde, involves thousands of men. The city authorities believe the situation is beyond the control of the outnumbered police; the Sheriff sends a message to the local army commander requesting assistance.For the first time in history, tanks will be despatched as ‘military aid to the civil power’. They will be accompanied by 10,000 soldiers. At approximately 12.30pm on Friday 31 January 1919, a century of myth-making commences. Using thousands of pages of court papers, memoirs and news reports, this book is the first attempt to tell the story of what happened in day-by-day detail.
Matisse at War
In 1940, with the Nazis sweeping through France, Henri Matisse found himself at a personal and artistic crossroads. His 42-year marriage had ended, he was gravely ill, and after decades at the forefront of modern art, he was beset by doubt. As scores of famous figures escaped the country, Matisse took refuge in Nice, with his companion, Lydia Delectorskaya. By defiantly remaining, Matisse was a source of inspiration for his nation. While enemy agents and Resistance fighters played cat-and-mouse in the alleyways of Nice, Matisse''s son, Jean, engaged in sabotage efforts with the Allies. In Paris, under the swastika, Matisse''s estranged wife, Amelie, worked for the Communist underground. His beloved daughter, Marguerite, active in the French Resistance, was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, sentenced to Ravensbruck concentration camp - and miraculously escaped when her train was halted by Allied bombs. His younger, son, Pierre helped Jewish artists escape to New York; even his teenaged grandson risked his life by defying the Germans and their Vichy collaborators. Amidst this chaos, Matisse responded to the dark days of war by inventing a dazzling new paper technique that led to some of his most iconic pieces, including The Fall of Icarus, his profile of Charles De Gaulle, Monsieur Loyal, and his groundbreaking cut-out book, Jazz. His wartime works were acts of resistance, subtly patriotic and daringly new. Drawing on intimate letters and a multitude of other sources, Christopher C. Gorham illuminates this momentous stage of Matisse''s life as never before, revealing an artist on a journey of reinvention, wrenching meaning from the suffering of war, and holding up the light of human imagination against the torch of fascism to create some of the most exciting work of his career, of the 20th century, and in the history of art.
The Decipherment of Linear A
Linear A is a Middle and Late Bronze Age script principally used on Crete. Dated to 1800 - 1450 BC, it was discovered by archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans in 1900 and for over 120 years it has – until now – defied decipherment.In his book, author Mark Cook, a forensic accountant, demonstrates how he deciphered Linear A. His work describes how he first approached decipherment by setting aside commonly held misconceptions. Previous decipherment attempts typically incorrectly assumed the underlying language was an unknown Minoan language (Crete being the heart of the Minoan Empire), or misconstrued its relationship with Linear B (the earliest written form of Greek, which replaced it).Linear A is found mainly on clay tablets recording ephemeral accounting information, and Mark Cook tackled the decipherment as an accountant, focussing on the numbers, noting the mathematical relationships between the items recorded (which relationships were evident in the later Linear B script where the same things were being recorded), and analysing the characters used to record them.Mark Cook demonstrates that Linear A is Middle Egyptian, written in a form of shorthand used by the later Greeks and Romans, using hieroglyphs that were modified and simplified to be incised quickly and easily in wet clay. Many of the tablets, he reveals, are Egyptian taxation records.Based on the tablets he translates, and the reinterpretation of Egyptian evidence, Mark Cook concludes that New Kingdom Egypt ultimately came to rule Crete for a brief period, rewriting what we know of the end of the Minoan Empire.
Hitler's Luftwaffe Infantry
By spring 1942, Hitler’s forces on the Eastern Front were suffering heavy losses. To replace these casualties, the Army requested the transfer of 20,000 men from the Kriegsmarine and 200,000 airmen from the Luftwaffe to be retrained as infantry. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe, vehemently opposed the plan, fearing it would diminish his political power after several Luftwaffe failures. He proposed instead that the Luftwaffe raise and equip these 200,000 men, arguing their Nazi spirit would benefit the war effort.Hitler, prioritizing political loyalty over military logic, approved the creation of Luftwaffen Felddivisionen (Luftwaffe Field Divisions). Despite being ill-suited for front-line combat, these divisions were deployed in all theatres except North Africa. They were generally ineffective, with many regarded as fit only for garrison duties. On the Eastern Front, they struggled due to the brutal intensity of the fighting. However, two divisions, the 12th and 21st, performed relatively well.This in-depth study examines the Luftwaffe Field Divisions, uncovering the tragic consequences of Göring’s decision. Many Luftwaffe personnel perished in these ill-prepared divisions, whose lives might have been spared had they received proper Army training. The research draws on extensive archival materials, highlighting the human cost of this strategic blunder.
V kategórii populárno - náučné encyklopédie nájdete široký výber kníh, ktoré vám poskytnú poznatky z rôznych oblastí zaujímavým a zrozumiteľným spôsobom. Encyklopédie vám pomôžu získať komplexný prehľad o rôznych témach, ako ľudské telo a človek, príroda, vesmír, veda a technika a história.
Naša ponuka encyklopédií populárno-náučného charakteru vám umožní objaviť fascinujúci svet poznania a rozšíriť svoje vedomosti o rôznych témach.




























