Catalog Search Results

Great Britain's geopolitical role has undergone many changes over the last four centuries. Once a maritime superpower and ruler of half the world, Britain now occupies an isolated position as an economically fragile island often at odds with her European neighbors. In The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, Lawrence James has written a comprehensive, perceptive, and insightful history of the British Empire. Spanning the years from 1600 to the present...

This classic study of Irish culture, extensively illustrated with photographs, maps and drawings, and reissued with a new foreword and an updated bibliography, gives a detailed yet panoramic view of Ireland. It follows in the great tradition of French historiography, adding the testament of landscape, antiquities and folk custom to that of document-based history as a primary source of knowledge of our past. It is a justly acclaimed, stimulating work...

Konstantin Sidorov provides a first-hand, sobering account of one of the most tumultuous periods in modern Russian history. The book details the chaotic transition from Soviet communism to a Western-style capitalist system, a process riddled with corruption, societal collapse, and a profound disillusionment with the West. Sidorov paints a vivid picture of the decade that set the stage for Vladimir Putin's rise to power. His thorough examination of...

With a history as dark and bloody as any in our nation, the Natchez Trace has always been more than just a thoroughfare. Growing out of a need for a return route for flatboats that floated down the Mississippi, the Trace winds up from Natchez, Mississippi, through Alabama and ends in Nashville, Tennessee. From the start, the Natchez Trace was alive with rugged pioneers, politicians, ladies of fashion, settlers, soldiers, and robbers. You'll learn...

From one of our most acclaimed historians comes an account of human solidarity throughout the ages, provocatively arguing against the received wisdom that history is best understood as a chronicle of groups in conflict. Investigating the six most pervasive categories of human difference-religion, nation, class, gender, race, and civilization-Cannadine asks how determinative each of them has really been over the course of history. Without denying...

The culture wars have distorted the dramatic story of how Americans came to worship freely. Author Waldman, cofounder of Beliefnet.com, argues that the United States was not founded as a "Christian nation," nor were the Founding Fathers uniformly secular or Deist. Rather, the Founders forged a new approach to religious liberty, a revolutionary formula that promoted faith--by leaving it alone. His narrative begins with early settlers' stunningly unsuccessful...

In How Socialist East Germany's Elite Turned Capitalist, Gerhard Schnehen analyses the rise, transformation, and eventual collapse of the German Democratic Republic's (GDR). This incisive book sheds light on the hidden dynamics behind the fall of East Germany, unveiling how the very leaders of the "socialist" state dismantled its foundations from within. With more than 100 SEO-optimized keywords, this description brings clarity to one of the 20th...

Step into the Turbulent Waters of Maritime History: This second volume of research on early English shipwrecks covers the early Stuart era 1603-1647, helping to identify wrecks from the siege of Duncannon during the Irish confederate wars in 1645, to Hudson's Bay, to the coast of India. Charts and illustrations enliven the text. This unique book encompasses in a single volume data including lists of ships and ship types in the service of King...

"Who invented beds? When did we start cleaning our teeth? How old are wine and beer? Which came first: the toilet seat or toilet paper? What was the first clock? Every day, from the moment our alarm clock wakes us in the morning until our head hits our pillow at night, we all take part in rituals that are millennia old. Structured around one ordinary day, [this book] reveals the astonishing origins and development of the daily practices we take for...

The war that was fought between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 was a major event in the history of both countries: it cost Mexico half of its national territory, opened western North America to U.S. expansion, and brought to the surface a host of tensions that led to devastating civil wars in both countries. Among generations of Latin Americans, it helped to cement the image of the United States as an arrogant, aggressive, and imperialist...