Historie

'Dear Ta-ra-ra, It surprises us to find that a girl sufficiently educated to write and spell well should be so deplorably ignorant of the common rules of society to think that she may go out alone with a young man in his canoe' - "Girl's Own Paper", 1895. "Never Kiss a Man in a Canoe" is a fascinating glimpse into our social past and harks back to a time when agony aunts played a pivotal role in society, advising men and women on love, sex, relationships and other taboo subjects. From advice on the immorality of reading a crime novel or riding a bicycle to Sunday school, to tips on beauty, etiquette and how to make a boy into a man, this wonderful book is a slap in the face for everyone accustomed to the politically correct advice of today, and is a tribute to the manners of the past t

THE MAN WHO BROKE INTO AUSCHWITZ is the extraordinary true story of a British soldier who marched willingly into Buna-Monowitz, the concentration camp known as Auschwitz III. In the summer of 1944, Denis Avey was being held in a POW labour camp, E715, near Auschwitz III. He had heard of the brutality meted out to the prisoners there and he was determined to witness what he could. He hatched a plan to swap places with a Jewish inmate and smuggled himself into his sector of the camp. He spent the night there on two occasions and experienced at first-hand the cruelty of a place where slave workers, had been sentenced to death through labour. Astonishingly, he survived to witness the aftermath of the Death March where thousands of prisoners were murdered by the Nazis as the Soviet Army adv

Winner of the 2010 W.J.M. Mackenzie Prize for Best Political Science Book of the Year 2010. The relentless rise of Communism was the most momentous political development of the first half of the twentieth century. No political change has been more fundamental than its demise in Europe and its decline elsewhere. In this hugely acclaimed book Archie Brown provides an indispensable history that examines the origins of the ideology, its development in different countries, its collapse in many states following the Soviet perestroika, and its current incarnations around the globe. The Rise and Fall of Communism explains how and why Communists came to power; how they were able, in a variety of countries on different continents to hold on to power for so long; and what brought about the downfa

First published under the title "The Theatre of the World", this is a captivating portrait of the crucible of magic, science and religion at the court of the doomed dreamer Rudolf II in Renaissance Prague. In the late 16th century the greatest philosophers, alchemists, astronomers, painters, and mathematicians of the day flocked to Prague to work under the patronage of the Holy Roman Emperor. "The Mercurial Emperor" is the enchanting story of Rudolf II, an emperor more interested in the great minds of his times than in the exercise of his immense power. Rarely leaving Prague Castle, he gathered around him a galaxy of famous figures: among them the painter Arcimboldo, the astronomer Tycho Brahe, the mathematician Johannes Kepler, the philosopher Giordano Bruno and the magus John Dee. En

Shortlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction Shortlisted for the Royal Society Prize for Science Book Richard Holmes, prize-winning biographer of Coleridge and Shelley, explores the scientific ferment that swept across Britain at the end of the 18th century in his ground-breaking new biography 'The Age of Wonder'. 'The Age of Wonder' is Richard Holmes's first major work of biography in over a decade. It has been inspired by the scientific ferment that swept through Britain at the end of the eighteenth century, 'The Age of Wonder' and which Holmes now radically redefines as 'the revolution of Romantic Science'. The book opens with Joseph Banks, botanist on Captain Cook's first Endeavour voyage, stepping onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, hoping to discover Paradise. Many oth

"That Sweet Enemy "brings both British wit (Robert Tombs is a British historian) and French panache (Isabelle Tombs is a French historian) to bear on three centuries of the history of Britain and France. From Waterloo to Chirac's slandering of British cooking, the authors chart this cross-channel entanglement and the unparalleled breadth of cultural, economic, and political influence it has wrought on both sides, illuminating the complex and sometimes contradictory aspects of this relationship--rivalry, enmity, and misapprehension mixed with envy, admiration, and genuine affection--and the myriad ways it has shaped the modern world. Written with wit and elegance, and illustrated with delightful images and cartoons from both sides of the Channel, "That Swe

This book, the most thoroughly researched and accurate history of Czechoslovakia to appear in English, tells the story of the country from its founding in 1918 to partition in 1992-from fledgling democracy through Nazi occupation, Communist rule, and invasion by the Soviet Union to, at last, democracy again.

The common Western view of Czechoslovakia has been that of a small nation that was sacrificed at Munich in 1938 and betrayed to the Soviets in 1948, and which rebelled heroically against the repression of the Soviet Union during the Prague Spring of 1968. Mary Heimann dispels these myths and shows how intolerant nationalism and an unhelpfu

Terror and Consent argues that, like so many states and civilizations in the past that suffered defeat, we are fighting the last war, with weapons and concepts that were useful to us then but have now been superseded. Philip Bobbitt argues that we need to reforge links that previous societies have made between law and strategy; to realize how the evolution of modern states has now produced a globally networked terrorism that will change as fast as we can identify it; to combine humanitarian interests with strategies of intervention; and, above all, to rethink what 'victory' in such a war, if it is a war, might look like.

From 55 BC to 1945, An Utterly Impartial History of Britain informs, explains, but most of all laughs at the seemingly incomprehensible rollercoaster of events that make up the story of Grat Britain. Packed with great characters trapped in impossible dilemmas, this true-life drama will have you on the edge of your seats thinking 'I wonder which of them dies at the end?' (Well, they all do, obviously. It was ages ago)

The classic that exploded into public controversy and revolutionized the course of science in Signet Classic edition. Features include a complete glossary, index, and an Introduction by noted biologist Sir Julian Huxley. In The Origin of Species (1859) Darwin challenged many of the most deeply-held beliefs of the Western world. Arguing for a material, not divine, origin of species, he showed that new species are achieved by "natural selection." The Origin communicates the enthusiasm of original thinking in anopen, descriptive style, and Darwin's emphasis on the value of diversity speaks more strongly now than ever. As well as a stimulating introduction and detailed notes, this edition offers a register of the many writers referred to by Darwin in the text.