Najnovšie - Encyklopédie populárno-náučné strana 90 z 183
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Egyptian Mythology
Immerse yourself in the dark and complex mythology of Ancient Egypt. Alongside the mummies and the great treasure-filled burial chambers of the Pyramids are the many gods, heroes, monsters and legends that defined their universe. Atum, the first being -- who then begat Nut, the sky goddess and Geb, the god of the land -- and their union in turn producing Osiris, Seth, Isis and Nephthys. Explore Ancient Egypt''s creation myths, including the Book of the Dead, and the evolution of pictograms and hieroglyphs, which documented many aspects of Egyptian life. Read how, across the long duration of the Ancient Egyptian age, animals such as cats, falcons, baboons and scarab beetles became sacred, and how species like the jackal, lion and the Nile crocodile became intertwined with the gods. Death and the afterlife occupied a central place in the Ancient Egyptian belief system, and this well-illustrated book explores the extraordinary lengths and care given to funerary practices, including the Weighing of the Heart and the elaborate rituals to ensure the successful passage of the deceased pharaohs into the afterlife -- to live in Paradise with Osiris. Fully illustrated with photographs of shrines and statuary, this book is the definitive guide to the dark, complex and extraordinary mythology of Ancient Egypt.
General Lucian K. Truscott
Explores the
life and military career of Lucian Truscott, one of the greatest, yet least
celebrated, US combat commanders of World War II.
Born in Texas to a
drug-addicted father, Truscott would become one of the United States’ greatest
ever combat generals. Expert in mechanised warfare and amphibious operations
during World War II, he was a plain-speaking, determined fighter.
The book traces
Truscott’s rise as a senior American commander in various theaters of war,
including the campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and southern France. It
examines Truscott’s relationship with other senior American commanders such as
George Patton (who once threatened to sack him), Mark Clark (who didn’t like
him), Eisenhower and George Marshall.
Truscott made a
significant contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany, improving his command
skills with each new experience. Being placed in command of the Anzio beachhead
was his finest hour, where his vital contribution ultimately led to the capture
of Rome.
Truscott garnered
a unique record during World War II as the only American officer to command
military formations from regiment up to a full army, with over 200,000 soldiers
under his command. He also took part in five amphibious landings during the
war, becoming the United States’ foremost expert in such operations.
General Lucian K.
Truscott: ‘Quite a talent for fighting’ is for military enthusiasts looking to expand their
knowledge beyond the well-known names of World War II canon.
Dance of the Fire
A critical first-hand appraisal of the activities, achievements, and importance of the Jewish Brigade by IDF Major-General Shlomo Shamir (Rabinowicz), its Covert Internal Commander on behalf of the Haganah and the Jewish national institutions in Palestine. Some myths surrounding the Brigade’s activities are also dealt with in this appraisal. The Jewish Brigade, a unit of the British Army during WW2, played a crucial role on behalf of world Jewry in the fight against Nazi Germany. Comprised mainly of Jewish volunteers from Palestine, the Brigade was formed in 1944 after four years of struggle for deployment as a fighting force. The Brigade participated in the Italian campaign, distinguishing itself in the battles along the Senio River and proving that Jewish soldiers could fight as a unified force against a well-trained enemy and prevail. Beyond combat and under Shamir’s guidance, the Brigade was the first to search for, meet, and care for survivors of the Holocaust. Despite British disapproval, its members worked at numerous Displaced Persons camps in Germany, particularly at Bergen-Belsen, and facilitated the illegal journeys of many survivors to Palestine. The story of the Brigade therefore, exemplified a dedicated pursuit of both military goals and Jewish national aspirations. With many Brigade members subsequently becoming leading figures in the fledgling Israel Defence Forces (IDF), the book shines a light on how the experience of these Jewish volunteers in the British Army was irreplaceable in shaping both the military and political landscape of the nascent State of Israel.
The Garden and the Jungle
''Europe is a garden... It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity, and social cohesion that the humankind has been able to build... Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden.'' This is how Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, characterized the situation in 2022, several months after Russia''s invasion of Ukraine and one year before Israel''s war against Gaza. Europe has a singular image of itself and of the world. It persists in thinking of itself as the cradle of civilization, the incarnation of good and justice, threatened by a global environment where savagery, darkness, and evil reign. Clinging to this fantasy inherited from a colonial past, it is lost and misguided, turning its back on the values of humanism and equality to which it nevertheless claims to adhere. As long as Europe and, with it, the political West, have not renounced their desire for power, there will unite against them the resentment of all the peoples who have had the bitter experience of their domination over the last five centuries. Because the ''jungle'' is Europe''s own creation, produced by the blindness of conquest and exploitation. This powerful essay is an invitation to rebuild a Europe that is truly concerned about the fragility of the world and of life, with an acute awareness of the perils that threaten humanity.
The Secret Sacred
The Secret Sacred explores the hidden religious practices of the classical world. These cults, shrouded in secrecy, promised initiates a transformative afterlife. While many rituals remain mysterious, artworks and historical texts provide glimpses of their underlying beliefs. The book examines Greco-Roman religious traditions and their divergence into mystery cults, including Bacchic ceremonies depicted in frescoes, Orphic gold tablets guiding souls in the underworld and the Eleusinian Mysteries celebrating Demeter and Persephone’s cycle of rebirth. Eastern deities like Mithras, Isis and Cybele also feature in the cults discussed. The possible influence of mystery religions on early Christianity is also explored, drawing parallels with modern-day beliefs. Featuring the most recent archaeological discoveries and stunning museum artefacts, this is a lively account of the concealed faiths of the ancient world.
The State and the Soldier
America's Founding Fathers feared that a standing army would be a permanent political danger, yet the U.S. military has in the 250 years since become a bulwark of democracy. Kori Schake explains why in this compelling history of civil-military relations from independence to the challenges of the present. The book begins with General Washington's vital foundational example of subordination to elected leaders during the Revolutionary War. Schake recounts numerous instances in the following century when charismatic military leaders tried to challenge political leaders and explains the emergence of restrictions on uses of the military for domestic law enforcement. She explores the crucial struggle between President Andrew Johnson and Congress after Lincoln's assassination, when Ulysses Grant had to choose whether to obey the Commander-in-Chief or the law – and chose to obey the law. And she shows how the professionalization of the military in the twentieth century inculcated norms of civilian control. The U.S. military is historically anomalous for maintaining its strength and popularity while never becoming a threat to democracy. Schake concludes by asking if its admirable record can be sustained when the public is pulling the military into the political divisions of our time.
History of the Adriatic
The Adriatic is ‘the small Mediterranean’ – a sea within a sea, part of the Mediterranean and at the same time detached from it, a largely enclosed sea with stunning coastlines and a long history of commercial, political and cultural exchange. Silent witness to the flow of civilizations, the Adriatic is the meeting point of East and West where many empires had their frontiers and some overlapped. With Italy on one side and the Balkans on the other, the Adriatic is the area where the Latin West became intertwined with the Greek and Ottoman East. This book tells the history of the Adriatic from the first cultures of the Neolithic Age through to the present day. All of the great civilizations and cultures that bordered and crossed the Adriatic are discussed: Ancient Greece and Rome, Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire, Venice and the Ottomans, Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and Islam. Byzantium was replaced by Venice, queen of the Adriatic, which reached its zenith at the beginning of the sixteenth century and maintained commercial and military hegemony in its Gulf, sharing the sea with the Turks, the Habsburgs, the Pope and the Spanish vice-kingdom of Naples. It was Napoleon who ended Venice’s reign in 1797. In the nineteenth century, the Austrian Empire prevailed, and Central Europe reached the Mediterranean through the Adriatic. United Italy placed its most symbolic frontier in the eastern Adriatic, clashing with Austria-Hungary in the First World War. The twentieth century was marked by the prolonged conflicts and eventually peace between Yugoslavia, Albania and Italy. Today the Adriatic is a region increasingly integrated into the European Union, experiencing a new era of cooperation following the dramatic collapse of Yugoslavia. Across centuries, this book illustrates the rich cultural and artistic heritage of diverse civilizations as they left their mark on the cities, shores and states of the Adriatic.
Witches
Witches – whether broomstick-riding spell-casters or Wiccan earth-worshippers – have been culturally relevant for centuries. For centuries, too, belief in the potency of witchcraft has been debated, accused witches have been hunted and punished, and film and TV productions have brought the witch and the witch-hunter to big and small screens.But where did our perception of witches – good and bad – come from? What motivated wide-scale panics about witchcraft during certain periods? How were alleged witches identified, accused, and variously tortured and punishe? teven Veerapen traces witches, witchcraft, and witch-hunters from the explosion of mass-trials under King James VI and I in the late sixteenth century to the death of the witch-hunting phenomenon in the early eighteenth century. Based on documents and the latest historical research, he explores what motivated widespread belief in demonic witchcraft throughout Britain as well as in continental Europe, what caused mass panics about alleged witches, and what led, ultimately, to the relegation of the witch – and the witch-hunter – to the realm of fantasy and the fringes of society.
Tracks on the Ocean
Longlisted for the 2025 BSHS Hughes Prize ''Enthralling'' Philip Ball''Ingenious'' Sujit SivasundaramIn Tracks on the Ocean, Sara Caputo tells how our journeys around the globe became fixed lines on maps - and how journey lines themselves reshaped maps and the way that we view the world. From Captain Cook''s route across the South Seas to the disorientating power of digital technology, the tracks we''ve left on the oceans - trading, exploring and conquering - are a hidden record of humanity''s impact on the planet. Revealing their histories, Caputo uncovers a fascinating new history of maritime travel and modernity.Weaving human history, cartography, literature and climate science, Tracks on the Ocean reveals how, on the path to discovery, we have changed the world.
The Rage of Party
THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025A CAPX AND ENGELSBERG IDEAS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 The late 17th century saw the rise of a new phenomenon that would transform Britain forever: party politics. Beginning with a furious dispute over whether to allow a Roman Catholic - James II - to become king, the division between Whig and Tory marked the chief political battlelines of a ferociously polarised country for several tumultuous generations. The Rage of Party traces the thrilling story of how these two parties - one representing the established social forces of squire, church and monarchy; the other the rising forces of financial power and Protestant Dissent - settled the defining debates of the age, culminating in a dramatic fight to the death over peace, piety and the Protestant Succession in the age of Queen Anne. Their bitter disputes over religion, economics and the constitution profoundly influenced many of the forces and institutions that shaped the modern world, ranging from the City of London and the Bank of England to the Union between England and Scotland and the British Empire. From vicious pamphlet wars and some of history's most corrupt and riotous elections through a revolution, multiple assassination attempts and enough scandals to make even the most louche modern politician blush, this brilliantly researched book shows how a motley crew of rakes, hypocrites, cunning tricksters and scheming clergymen engaged in not only a political confrontation that threatened a second civil war, but a culture war that still finds echoes in 21st-century Britain. 'This is a lucid and exciting account of high and low politics in the crucial years of Whig and Tory battles following the Glorious Revolution, when Great Britain was created, and a new world of money, war and empire dawned. George Owers grippingly recounts the culture wars, paranoia, self-seeking and skulduggery that are "both recognisable and strange". Recognizable because "we are all still, in our heart of hearts, either Whig or Tory", and we are still grappling with their legacy' - Robert Tombs, author of The English and their History'This book is a delight. Written with vivacity and veracity it sheds light on the miracle of English party politics' - Maurice Glasman'We tend to think of our current age as uniquely fractious but as George Owers shows in his engrossing new book, it is a kindergarten compared to the "Rage of Party'' this country experienced in the late seventeen and early eighteenth centuries. The story he tells so vividly has it all: political divisions, religious strife, immigration controversies, fake news, arguments over foreign policy, Anglo-Scottish tensions - polarisation all round!' - Brendan Simms, author of Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 1453 to the Present'A highly readable account of the beginnings of the party system in Britain, with insights that are relevant for understanding of politics in any era. George Owers's vivid recreation of the conflict of Whigs and Tories illuminates what was a crucial period in the rise of Britain as a major European and global power' - David Hayton, editor of The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1690-1715'Today's party politics absorbs us. When did British party politics begin and how? George Owers's book provides a compelling analysis, brilliantly interweaving vivid vignettes into a masterly narrative' - Mark Goldie, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Cambridge
Oliver Twist & Me
"A fascinating family and social history and a savage indictment of the role of child slavery in the growth of the Industrial Revolution," Catherine Taylor, author of The Stirrings: A Memoir in Northern TimeWe all think we know the tale. As a child, Charles Dickens was forced to work in a mouldering Thames-side blacking factory, an event that scarred him for life and inspired Oliver Twist. Except that''s only part of the story. In reality, Dickens appropriated the stories of foundlings and orphans - including Robert Blincoe, whose memoir supplied the source material for his great novel of childhood. In Oliver Twist & Me, novelist Nicholas Blincoe presents a dual biography of Dickens and his great-great-great-grandfather Robert, showing how the story of an orphan took off in different directions, helping Dickens project himself as an inimitable literary one-off, just as Robert''s memoir of a workhouse boy gave a voice to the masses.From London and Kent to the factories of Manchester, Blincoe retraces the steps of both men, along the way discovering the Camden workhouse that inspired Dickens and revisiting the great stage musical. His journeys with his family and his dog Fredo lead him to an affectionate reassessment of a beloved classic, while also revealing how Dickens shaped the story of his lonely childhood to suppress his debt to his family, hide his affairs and, as his career ignited, abandon the people who had helped him. By playing off the lives of a working-class hero and a classic author, Oliver Twist & Me reveals Dickens - and his world - as they have never been seen before.
Mitchell
*‘A triumph of historical narrative.’ JAMES HOLLAND, author of Victory '45The gripping story of the pioneer behind the Spitfire told in a major new biography ‘Britain's leading aviation historian' Daily Mail Reginald Mitchell is one of the greatest names in aviation history. A visionary engineer with a passion for speed, his legacy is the most iconic fighter aircraft of all time: the Spitfire. During the uneasy peace of the 1920s, he was a trailblazing innovator working at the cutting edge of technology. As Europe’s politics darkened in the 1930s, the work of Mitchell and his team at Supermarine became crucial to a nation preparing for war. Though he did not live to see the Spitfire in action, his work led to triumph at the Battle of Britain – and to a legendary aircraft that still inspires awe to this day. In this exhilarating biography, Paul Beaver takes us behind the scenes, exploring the creative genius of a man devoted to pushing the boundaries of technology. We see his flair for leadership and collaboration with Rolls-Royce, the pinnacle of British engineering; we learn of Mitchell’s other innovative designs that could have changed the course of the war, had he not died in 1937; and, at last, we hear the real story behind the Spitfire. Drawing on new interviews, private archives and previously unpublished material, this is the story of a man who helped change the course of history – one of the great design leaders of the twentieth century. Praise for Winkle:'[A] thumping great biography by Britain's leading aviation historian' Daily Mail, ‘Book of the Week’'Winkle Brown's astonishing adventures make for fascinating reading' Sunday Times'Beaver recounts the story of a man he regarded as a mentor in unshowy but fascinating detail, and restores a British hero to his rightful place' Observer 'The extraordinary story [of] a fearless pilot and decorated war hero. Epic' The Herald'An incredible life ... Brown took a secret to the grave that makes his story all the more remarkable' The Sun
Trails to Freedom
Trails to Freedom is the story of a solo hike across the Alps that brings to life the fascinating, largely unknown history of the Anzac POWs who escaped Fascist Italy to find safety in neutral Switzerland during WWII. In October 1943, four Australian soldiers left Biella in the foothills of the Alps in northern Turin, fleeing Italy's Nazi–Fascist regime. They spoke no Italian, and they had scant clothing and no food. With the help of local partisans, who offered support at great risk to themselves and their families, the soldiers crossed into neutral Switzerland eight days later. They were four of more than 500 Anzac POWs who followed the sentieri della libertá, the trails to freedom. Decades later, author Simon Tancred embarks on a modern-day pilgrimage along the same route. With every step he takes, history rises to meet him: the stories of the four escapees, the Italian anti-fascists who helped them and the Anzac soldiers who didn't make it. He remembers, too, his uncle John, a POW who perished in the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Along the way, he passes through some of the most spectacular and challenging terrain in Europe.
The Defector
<p><i>The Defector </i>is the untold account of how, in 1971, the defection of a KGB saboteur in London led to the expulsion of more than a hundred Soviet 'diplomats' from the UK.<br><br>Drawing on newly declassified intelligence documents and dozens of interviews with spymasters,<i> The Defector</i> tells a startling story of a Soviet mission to plant fake Kremlin agents within British and American intelligence services, the paranoia that ensued, and how the actions of a genuine turncoat, the former KGB officer Oleg Lyalin, and the secrets he revealed resulted to one of the most dramatic and pivotal moments in the Cold War. <br><br>Lyalin led MI5 to rethink its relationship with the CIA. And his defection discredited a previous KGB defector, Anatoly Golitsyn, the darling of the CIA, and ultimately destroyed the reputation of the US agency's head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton. <br><br><br>As Richard Kerbaj writes: 'There was a poetic irony in Golitsyn's loss of credibility. It came, as he had previously feared, at the hands of a KGB defector. Except Oleg Lyalin had not been sent by the KGB - he was running away from it.'<br><br>At the heart of Lyalin's story is a narrative entwined with lies, disinformation, Kremlin deception campaigns, intelligence failures by the CIA and MI5, and a tangled love life. Told in full here, for the first time, by one of this country's leading commentators on national security, it reveals how during the darkest moments of the Cold War one of the West's greatest achievements transpired as a result of MI5's break with the CIA.<br><br>The disclosure of the inside story of this historic event also comes at a time when there is a renewed interest in the relationship between transatlantic spy services - from the intelligence they share or hold back, to the way they respond to their political masters and stand up to threats from Russia.</p>
Dark London
From dark crimes of passion to shocking tales of grave robbing, gruesome murders, dens of iniquity, Victorian séances and haunted houses – not far beneath London’s everyday bustle and glitter there has long been a fascinatingly rich underworld of criminality, superstition, scandal and macabre debauchery.Explore this rich seam of morbid history, case-by-case, with social historian Dr Drew Gray, a specialist in the history of crime and punishment. Who were the London Burkers, for example, whose ringleader confessed to stealing and selling nearly 1,000 dead bodies to keen 1830s anatomists? What was ''The Whitechapel Tragedy'' of 1875, and who was its unfortunate headless victim? Why was there so much public panic about crime in Victorian London, and how did the city’s notoriously rough prisons, courts, workhouses and houses of correction deal with its perpetrators?Dark London brings together the history of the city’s seamier side, picking out the most scandalous, curious and bizarre aspects of London’s shadowy and fascinating underbelly.
The Stolen Crown
The explosive account of the succession of Elizabeth I from bestselling author Tracy Borman, Chief Historian at Historic Royal Palaces ''COMPELLING AND BRILLIANT'' - ALISON WEIR''Reads like a political thriller'' - GARETH RUSSELL, author of Queen James''Part political thriller . . . A thrilling achievement'' - KATE WILLIAMS, author of Rival Queens''Wonderful . . . like a political thriller'' - ELIZABETH NORTON, author of The Lives of Tudor Women----------In March 1603, Queen Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch, lies dying at Richmond Palace. The queen''s ministers cluster round her bedside, urging her to name her successor - something she has stubbornly resisted throughout her reign. Almost with her last breath she whispers that James VI of Scotland should succeed her.Or so we''ve been led to believe.But, as enthralling new research shows, this is not what happened. Elizabeth went to her grave without formally naming an heir. The notion of an approved succession from Tudors to Stuarts is little more than an elaborately constructed fiction - a fiction that went on to have devastating consequences. The Stuart regime rapidly descended into turbulence and uncertainty, conspiracy and persecution, witchcraft and gunpowder.With a combination of rigorous research and brilliant storytelling, The Stolen Crown takes us behind palace doors to reveal the secret history of the Tudor succession.
Deadwood
Sifting through layers and layers of myth and legend, Peter Cozzens - the award-winning author of The Earth is Weeping - unveils the true face of Deadwood, South Dakota, the storied mining town that sprang up in early 1876, and was made famous by the HBO series of the same name.Built on land brazenly stolen from the Lakotas, Deadwood was not merely a place where outlaws lurked, but was itself an outlaw enterprise, not part of any US territory or subject to its laws or governance. This gave rise to the gunslinging, stage-coach robbing, whiskey-guzzling, rampant prostitution and gambling that has come to epitomise the town through the legendary figures of ''Wild Bill'' Hickok and Calamity Jane. But this foundation also bred a self-reliance and a spirit of cooperation unique on the frontier, which made it an exceptionally welcoming place for Black Americans and Chinese immigrants at a time of deep-seated discrimination. The first book to tell this complex story in full, Deadwood reveals how one frontier town came to embody the best and worst of the West-enduring truths about humanity''s eternal quest for creating order from chaos, a greater good from individual greed, and security from violence.
Craftland
The story of craft is the story of who we are.Britain has always been a craft land. For generations what we made with our hands defined our families, communities and regions. Craftland brings to life the vanishing skills, traditions and trades that shaped the fabric and governed the rhythms of everyday life in Britain for hundreds of years.Through the stories of often humble-seeming objects of exquisite beauty, precision, utility and meaning, it shows how craft connects us to the land, emerging from local natural materials, and is the material expression of our regional identities and cultures. And through encounters with some of the last remaining master craftspeople at work today – weavers and wheelwrights, coopers and coppice-workers, boat-builders and bell-founders, silversmiths and watch-makers – we glimpse not only our past but another way of life, one that is not yet lost and whose wisdom could yet shape our future.For as long as there are humans, there will be craft, ever evolving in response to changing technologies, environments and communities. Craftland is a celebration of that deeply necessary connection between our creative instincts and the material world we inhabit, revealing a richer and more connected way of living.
Turncoat
Judged by contemporaries to be a ''perfidious rogue'', Sir George Downing rose to prominence during the English Civil War as Oliver Cromwell''s chief of military intelligence. In the Interregnum he proved himself a double-dealer who bribed and blackmailed his way to diplomatic success across Europe (pioneering the practice of judicial kidnapping and starting two major wars in the process), before spectacularly betraying his friends to horrifically violent deaths by defecting to Charles II''s court.Always at the centre of events, Downing engaged with the most illustrious men and women of his times: Samuel Pepys was his clerk; John Milton prepared his letters and dispatches; William of Orange was godfather to his son; his next-door neighbour was Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia; and when Downing finally built his street, his surveyor was Sir Christopher Wren.Turncoat tells George Downing''s story for the very first time, following him from the asceticism of Puritan New England, across English battlefields, through courts, chancelleries and parliaments, to the heart of wealth and power in Restoration London.
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.
