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The story of an uncovered voyage as colorful and momentous as any on record for the Age of Discovery—and of the Black mariner whose stunning accomplishment has been until now lost to history It began with a secret mission, no expenses spared. Spain, plotting to break Portugal’s monopoly...

On January 5, 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus's cries of innocence were drowned out by a mob shouting "Death to Judas!" In this book, Maurice Samuels gives listeners new insight into Dreyfus himself—the man at the center of the affair. He tells the story of Dreyfus's early life in Paris, his promising career as a French officer, the false accusation leading to his imprisonment on Devil's Island, the fight to prove his innocence that divided the French nation, and his life of quiet obscurity after World War I.

The Sceptred Isle provided the definitive radio account of the British nation, from 55BC to the end of the 20th century. Now its attention turns towards the incredibly powerful families which have wielded power behind the scenes for the past 1,000 years. The Dynasties relates how the loyalties of this privileged elite, many of whom are older than the monarchy itself, were tested and rewarded; it also uncovers a multitude of murderous plots, bloody battles, adulteries, intrigues and shocking executions.

Acclaimed biographer Susan Ronald reveals the truth about Joseph P. Kennedy's shockingly controversial tenure as Ambassador to Great Britain on the eve of World War II. On February 18, 1938, Joseph P. Kennedy was sworn in as US Ambassador to the Court of St. James. To say his appointment to the...

A century after his death, Grigory Rasputin remains fascinating: the Russian peasant with hypnotic eyes who befriended Tsar Nicholas II and helped destroy the Russian Empire, but the truth about his strange life has never fully been told. Written by the world's leading authority on Rasputin, this new biography draws on previously closed Soviet archives to offer new information on Rasputin's relationship with Empress Alexandra, sensational revelations about his sexual conquests, a re-examination of his murder, and more.

1305 A.D. Being descended from great, though disgraced family, can be a greater curse than most. As a direct descendent of Simon de Montfort, Lady Gray de Montfort Serroux has lived her life with the axe of shame hanging over her head. Because of this, her marriage matches were limited and she wed a dishonorable man who widowed her when he was murdered in a gambling game. Left with a young daughter to support, Gray and her daughter and her mother have been living in poverty.

El 25 de marzo de 1942, cientos de jóvenes mujeres judías y solteras abandonaron sus hogares para subir a un tren. Estaban impecablemente vestidas y peinadas, y arrastraban sus maletas llenas de ropa tejida a mano y comida casera. La mayoría de estas mujeres y niñas nunca habían pasado ni una noche fuera de casa, pero se habían ofrecido voluntariamente para trabajar durante tres meses en época de guerra. Ninguno de sus padres habría adivinado que el gobierno acababa de vender a sus hijas a los nazis para trabajar como esclavas.

Along with the volcanic destruction of Pompeii and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Lisbon quake of 1755 is one of the most destructive natural disasters ever recorded. After being jolted by a massive quake, Lisbon was then pounded by a succession of tidal waves and finally reduced to ash by a fire that raged for five straight days.

A story of tragedy at sea where every desperate act meant life or death The small ship making the Liverpool-to-New York trip in the early months of 1856 carried mail, crates of dry goods, and more than one hundred passengers, mostly Irish emigrants. Suddenly an iceberg tore the ship asunder and...

Duc de Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (1675-1755) was a French soldier, diplomat, and noted diarist. A French courtier during the 18th century, today he's best known for his comprehensive multi-volume memoirs, which depict life in France at the time. He was an indefatigable writer, and he began very early to record all the gossip he collected, all his interminable legal disputes over precedence, and a vast mass of unclassified material. He is petty, unjust to private enemies and to those who espoused public views contrary to his, as well as being an incessant gossip.

This wide ranging collection of essays allows the contemporary reader to grasp the extraordinary variety and depth of the statesman's mature thoughts on questions, both grave and gay, facing modern man. Churchill begins by asking what it would be like to live your life over again and ends by describing his love affair with painting. In between he touches on subjects as diverse as spies, cartoons, submarines, elections, flying, and the future.

The American Revolution was a naval war of immense scope and variety, including no less than 22 navies fighting on five oceans - to say nothing of rivers and lakes. In no other war were so many large-scale fleet battles fought, one of which was the most strategically significant naval battle in all of British, French, and American history.

As a child, he was given his own suit of armor; at the age of 16, he helped defeat the French at Crecy. At Poitiers, in 1356, his victory over King John II of France forced the French into a humiliating surrender that marked the zenith of England's dominance in the Hundred Years War. As lord of Aquitaine, he ruled a vast swathe of territory across the west and southwest of France, holding a magnificent court at Bordeaux that mesmerized the brave but unruly Gascon nobility. He was Edward of Woodstock, eldest son of Edward III, and better known to posterity as "the Black Prince".

At age eleven, Kenan Trebinčević was a happy, karate-loving kid living with his family in the quiet Eastern European town of Brčko. Then, in the spring of 1992, war broke out and his friends, neighbors and teammates all turned on him. Pero—Kenan’s beloved karate coach—showed up at his door with an AK-47, screaming: “You have one hour to leave or be killed!” Kenan’s only crime: he was Muslim.

For generations, British thinkers told the history of an empire whose story was still very much in the making. While they wrote of conquest, imperial rule in India, the Middle East, Africa, and the Caribbean was consolidated. While they described the development of imperial governance, rebellions were brutally crushed. As they reimagined empire during the two world wars, decolonization was compromised. Priya Satia shows how these historians not only interpreted the major political events of their time but also shaped the future that followed.

Long sources of mystery, imagination, and inspiration, the myths and history of the ancient Mediterranean have given rise to artistic, religious, cultural, and intellectual traditions that span the centuries. In this unique and comprehensive introduction to the region's three major civilizations, Egypt, Greece, and Rome draws a fascinating picture of the deep links between the cultures across the Mediterranean and explores the ways in which these civilizations continue to be influential to this day.

England—begetter of parliaments and globe-spanning empires, star of beloved period dramas, and home of the House of Windsor—is not quite the stalwart island fortress that many of us imagine. Riven by an ancient fault line that predates even the Romans, its fate has ever been bound up with that of its neighbors, and for the past millennia, it has harbored a class system like nowhere else. This bracing tour of the most powerful country in the United Kingdom reveals an England repeatedly invaded and constantly reinvented—yet always fractured by its very own Mason-Dixon Line.

Winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize Winner of the Longman History Today Trustees’ Award Longlisted for the Orwell Prize Unflinching and revealing, Black and British is a vital history that reveals how black British lives have been woven into the fabric of the nation for centuries – from...

In 1991, acting on a tip from a local fisherman, two scuba divers discovered a sunken German U-boat–complete with its crew of 60 men–not too far off the New Jersey coast. The divers, realizing the momentousness of their discovery, began probing the mystery. Over the next six years, they...

Metternich has a reputation as the epitome of reactionary conservatism. Historians treat him as the archenemy of progress, a ruthless aristocrat who used his power as the dominant European statesman of the first half of the nineteenth century to stifle liberalism, suppress national independence, and oppose the dreams of social change that inspired the revolutionaries of 1848. Wolfram Siemann paints a fundamentally new image of the man who shaped Europe for over four decades. He reveals Metternich as more modern and his career much more forward-looking than we have ever recognized.