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Articles 2941 à 2960 sur 5597
Par Lady Antonia Fraser. 1979
Following a youth of poverty and bitter exile after his father's execution, the ousted king first challenged, then made his…
magnificent escape from, Cromwell's troops before he was eventually restored to his throne in triumph in 1660.Spanning his life both before and after the Restoration, Antonia Fraser's lively and fascinating biography captures all the vitality of the man and the expansiveness of the age.Par Anne Sebba. 2008
Jennie Churchill was said to have had two hundred lovers, three of whom she married. But her love for her…
son Winston never wavered. Jennie Churchill is an intimate picture of her glittering but ultimately tragic life, and the powerful mutual infatuation between her and her son. Anyone who wants to understand Winston must start here, with this revelatory interpretation. Anne Sebba has gained unprecedented access to private family correspondence, newly discovered archival material and interviews with Jennie's two surviving granddaughters. She draws a vivid and frank portrait of her subject, repositioning Jennie as a woman who refused to be cowed by her era's customary repression of women.Par Matthew Dennison. 2010
Empress of Rome is the fascinating biography of one of the most perplexing and powerful figures of the ancient world:…
the empress Livia. Second wife of the emperor Augustus and the mother of his successor Tiberius, Livia has been vilified by posterity (most notably by Tacitus and Robert Graves) as the quintessence of the scheming Roman matriarch, poisoning her relatives one by one to smooth her son's path to the imperial throne. In this elegant and rigorously researched biography, Matthew Dennison rescues the historical Livia from this crudely drawn caricature of the popular imagination. He depicts a complex, courageous and richly gifted woman whose true crime was not was not murder but the exercise of power, and who, in a male-dominated society, had the energy to create for herself both a prominent public profile and a significant sphere of political influence.Par Nigel Cawthorne. 2010
What do the rich and famous really get up to behind closed doors? When does sexual passion become sordid perversion?…
Who are history's most shocking deviants and what are their sex secrets? The pages of this book reveal 45 shocking, scandalous - and often disturbing - stories of promiscuity and sexual perversion throughout the ages. Uncovered here are the orgies of Cleopatra and the incest of the Romans; the darkest fantasies of Michelangelo and the gross indecencies of the Marquis de Sade; as well as the insatiable desires of Rasputin, the degrading fetishes of Adolf Hitler, the unashamed exhibitionism of Tallulah Bankhead and the dirty thrills of Elvis Presley. 'Sordid Sex Lives' offers an insight into the shocking practices in which so many famous men and women have participated in. What motivates these sexual desires? Were they ever considered 'normal'? And what happened to those whose filthy secrets were found out? Bursting with real-life accounts, this is the most explicit and shocking account of the sex lives of history's most notorious characters.Par Harriet Castor. 1999
When Anne Frank is given a diary, she starts to write to her made-up friend, Kitty. But during World War…
II Anne and her family are forced to hide from the Nazi Germans. Find out all about the diary of Anne Frank with this story that is packed with all the facts and colourful pictures. This book is part of a series of picture books, Famous People, Great Events, which are suitable for ages 6-12. They tell the stories of famous men and women and great events in history. Written by successful authors, they are enjoyable reads which are packed with facts and colourful illustrations.Each book includes a timeline of key dates, a quiz and index.Par Harriet Castor. 1999
Exciting stories about famous people, outlining their lives and the important events which made them memorable. Every page features easy-to-follow…
text and a black-and-white line drawing to help bring these events to life. Each title gives further facts about the famous person and the times in which he or she lived, plus a comprehensive time line detailing key dates. Henry VIII is an exciting tale of kings and queens, jousting knights and grisly executions. It explains how Henry took power away from the Church in his quest for an heir to inherit his kingdom.Par Ranulph Fiennes. 2003
Sir Ranulph Fiennes is uniquely qualified to write a new biography of Captain Scott. This is the first biography of…
Scott by someone who has experienced the deprivations, the stress and the sheer physical pain that Scott lived through; he has suffered all but the final tragedy endured by the much maligned Scott. He is determined to put the record straight. As well as being the definitive biography of Scott, written with the full and exclusive cooperation of the Scott Estate, this book traces the way that Scott's reputation has been attacked and his achievements distorted.'Sir Ranulph Fiennes has done Captain Scott's memory some service...he has certainly written a more dispassionate and balanced account than Huntford ever set out to do.' - Simon Courtauld, SpectatorPar Harriet Castor. 1999
When Anne Frank is given a diary, she starts to write to her made-up friend, Kitty. But during World War…
II Anne and her family are forced to hide from the Nazi Germans. Find out all about the diary of Anne Frank with this story that is packed with all the facts and colourful pictures. This book is part of a series of books, Famous People, Famous Lives, which are suitable for ages 6-12. They tell the stories of famous men and women and great events in history. Written by successful authors, they are enjoyable reads which are packed with facts and illustrations.Par Jacqui Bailey. 2012
Elizabeth II's Reign examines the recent history of Britain. Exploring the Britain the Queen was born into and took over…
when her reign began, the Commonwealth, changing social times / family, fashion, technology and work the book builds up a picture of how life in Britain has changed.The book is bought alive with humourous cartoon and by memories in the form of quotes from people who remember the events and changes from the past 60 years. It is illustrated with pictures of the Queen and the Royal family and historical photos of life in Britain.With panels of facts about the Queen and the Royal Family, this is a great read for children and young adults in the year of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.Contents include:Sixty years on the throneThe end of the War (Rationing; marriages and births; a crumbling Empire; united for peace)A new Queen (King for a year; the Queen's father; coronation day; open to the public; good times...and bad)Family life (getting married; seen not heard; school days; pass or fail; all together; women's rights; all sorts of families; somewhere to live; instant houses; building blocks)Healthier and wealthier (paying the price; health for free; changing jobs; haves and have nots; the poverty line; going places; travelling by train; on the roads; it's good to talk; talking and walking, using computers)The way we live (a changing population; favourite food; super shops; well dressed; minis, bell-bottoms and safety pins; at the movies; what's on the box; from ballroom to the Beatles; festival time; by the seaside; packaged up)Looking aheadTimeline; further informationIndexPar Harriet Castor. 1999
Exciting stories about famous people, outlining their lives and the important events which made them memorable. Every page features easy-to-follow…
text and a black-and-white line drawing to help bring these events to life. Each title gives further facts about the famous person and the times in which he or she lived, plus a comprehensive time line detailing key dates. Henry VIII is an exciting tale of kings and queens, jousting knights and grisly executions. It explains how Henry took power away from the Church in his quest for an heir to inherit his kingdom.Par Gwen Strauss. 2021
"[A] narrative of unfathomable courage... Ms. Strauss does her readers—and her subjects—a worthy service by returning to this appalling history…
of the courage of women caught up in a time of rapacity and war." —Wall Street Journal"Utterly gripping." —Anne Sebba, author of Les Parisiennes "A compelling, beautifully written story of resilience, friendship and survival. The story of Women’s resistance during World War II needs to be told and The Nine accomplishes this in spades." —Heather Morris, New York Times bestselling author of Cilka's JourneyThe Nine follows the true story of the author’s great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a ten-day journey across the front lines of WWII from Germany back to Paris.The nine women were all under thirty when they joined the resistance. They smuggled arms through Europe, harbored parachuting agents, coordinated communications between regional sectors, trekked escape routes to Spain and hid Jewish children in scattered apartments. They were arrested by French police, interrogated and tortured by the Gestapo. They were subjected to a series of French prisons and deported to Germany. The group formed along the way, meeting at different points, in prison, in transit, and at Ravensbrück. By the time they were enslaved at the labor camp in Leipzig, they were a close-knit group of friends. During the final days of the war, forced onto a death march, the nine chose their moment and made a daring escape.Drawing on incredible research, this powerful, heart-stopping narrative from Gwen Strauss is a moving tribute to the power of humanity and friendship in the darkest of times.Par Ranulph Fiennes. 2009
Ranulph Fiennes tells the story of his unconventional, exceptional family, and reveals the ingredients for the man described by the…
Guinness Book of Records as 'the world's greatest living explorer'.Discover Sir Ranulph Twistelton-Wykham-Fiennes's personal expedition to trace his extraordinary family through history. From Charlemagne - himself a direct ancestor of the author - to the count who very nearly persuaded William the Conqueror to retreat at Hastings, many members of this unique clan have lived close to the nerve centre of the ruler of their day.They number in their ranks a murderer, a wife poisoner, a poacher, England's greatest female traveller of the 17th century, and an extortionist Lord High Treasurer, teen cousins who eloped, a noble lord hanged for manslaughter, another hanged for adultery with the King's wife, and many who, as admirals or major-generals, won famous battles. The Fiennes' behind Cromwell provided the castle in which the Parliamentarians made their first secret moves, the same building in which twenty-one successive generations of the family have lived for 600 unbroken years . . . And that is just a taster.A whirlwind romp through the annals of time, peopled with the good, the bad and downright mad among the Fiennes clan. - Sunday TelegraphPar Michael Lang. 2009
August 15 1969 Richie Havens the first act of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair takes…
the stage and welcomes a crowd of several hundred thousand to the green fields of Max Yasgur s farm--which is quickly becoming the second-largest city in New York State People are dancing imbibing meeting and helping the ever-increasing stream of new neighbors set up camp Beyond the fields the roads are jammed with cars and people some of whom have been traveling for days to reach the festival site Havens enthusiastically delivers folk-blues standards and Beatles songs then begins to improvise riffing on the refrain Freedom Freedom is at the heart of the harmony of this landmark cultural event--along with brotherhood love and peace The next three days are the realization of months and years of dreaming and planning the result of miracles and crises and coincidences The story of the festival begins with Michael Lang a kid out of Bensonhurst Brooklyn who liked to smoke a joint and listen to jazz and who eventually found his way to Florida where he opened a head shop and produced his first festival--Miami Pop featuring Jimi Hendrix Frank Zappa and others In the late sixties after settling in Woodstock he began to envision a music and arts festival where folks could come and stay for a few days amid the rural beauty of upstate New York The idea crystallized when Lang talked it over with Artie Kornfeld a songwriter and A R man and with two other young men they formed Woodstock Ventures They booked talent from Janis Joplin and the Who to the virtually unknown Santana and Crosby Stills and Nash won over agents and promoters brought in the Hog Farm commune to set up campgrounds hired a peacekeeping force took on fleets of volunteers appeased the Yippies and were run out of one town and found another site weeks before the festival On the ground with the talent the townspeople and his handpicked crew Lang had a unique and panoramic perspective of the festival Enhanced by interviews with others who were central to the making of the festival The Road to Woodstock tells the story from inspiration to celebration capturing all the magic mayhem and mud in betweenPar A. K. Fielding. 2021
Solider, politician, miner, pioneer, scion of a Founding Father, William Stephen Hamilton led a prolific life. Rough Diamond: The Life…
of Colonel William Stephen Hamilton examines the tumultuous early Republic period of American history through the life of Alexander Hamilton's son.Born in New York in 1797, the fifth son of Alexander Hamilton, he was only seven when his father was infamously killed in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr. After resigning from West Point, Hamilton moved to frontier Illinois in 1817. The famous name of Hamilton that may have acquired him rank and prestige at one time was meaningless in a Midwestern frontier society driven by the Jacksonians. Yet, despite being hurled into a clash of economic, political, and cultural cultures, Hamilton determined to live his life by his own rules. A veteran of the Winnebago and Black Hawk Wars, Hamilton was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives before moving to the Wisconsin territory, where he founded the mining town of Hamilton's Diggings (Wiota, WI). When gold was discovered in California in 1848, he traveled west, where he would die in Sacramento in 1850.In Rough Diamond: The Life of Colonel William Stephen Hamilton, author A. K. Fielding expands the story of the Hamilton family. Hamilton's life offers a firsthand account of the formation of the Midwestern states, the realities of life on the frontier, and mass migration caused by the California Gold Rush.Par Deborah A. Symonds. 2021
In her provocative politics, which confront us still with the complexities of left and right, and her constant search for…
her place in the world, Fox-Genovese’s story resonates more strongly than ever.Par Hussam R. Ahmed. 2021
Taha Hussein (1889–1973) is one of Egypt's most iconic figures. A graduate of al-Azhar, Egypt's oldest university, a civil servant…
and public intellectual, and ultimately Egyptian Minister of Public Instruction, Hussein was central to key social and political developments in Egypt during the parliamentary period between 1922 and 1952. Influential in the introduction of a new secular university and a burgeoning press in Egypt—and prominent in public debates over nationalism and the roles of religion, women, and education in making a modern independent nation—Hussein remains a subject of continued admiration and controversy to this day. The Last Nahdawi offers the first biography of Hussein in which his intellectual outlook and public career are taken equally seriously. Examining Hussein's actions against the backdrop of his complex relationship with the Egyptian state, the religious establishment, and the French government, Hussam R. Ahmed reveals modern Egypt's cultural influence in the Arab and Islamic world within the various structural changes and political processes of the parliamentary period. Ahmed offers both a history of modern state formation, revealing how the Egyptian state came to hold such a strong grip over culture and education—and a compelling examination of the life of the country's most renowned intellectual.Par Max Adams. 2009
The richly varied lives of the Martin brothers reflected the many upheavals of Britain in the age of Industrial Revolution.…
Low-born and largely unschooled, they were part of a new generation of artists, scientists and inventors who witnessed the creation of the modern world. William, the eldest, was a cussedly eccentric inventor who couldn't look at a piece of machinery without thinking about how to improve it; Richard, a courageous soldier, fought in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo; Jonathan, a hellfire preacher tormented by madness and touched with a visionary genius reminiscent of William Blake, almost burned down York Minster in 1829; while John, the youngest Martin, single-handedly invented, mastered and exhausted an entire genre of painting, the apocalyptic sublime, while playing host to the foremost writers, scientists and thinkers of his day. In The Prometheans Max Adams interweaves the fascinating story of these maverick siblings with a magisterial and multi-faceted account of the industrial, political and artistic ferment of early 19th-century Britain. His narrative centres on a generation of inventors, artists and radical intellectuals (including the chemist Humphry Davy, the engineer George Stephenson, the social reformer Robert Owen and the poet Shelley) who were seeking to liberate humanity from the tyranny of material discomfort and political oppression. For Adams, the shared inspiration that binds this generation together is the cult of Prometheus, the titan of ancient Greek mythology who stole fire from Zeus to give to mortal man, and who became a potent symbol of political and personal liberation from the mid-18th century onwards. Whether writing about Davy's invention of the miner's safety lamp, the scandalous private life of the Prince Regent, the death of Shelley or J.M.W. Turner's use of colour, Adams's narrative is pacy, characterful, and rich in anecdote, quotation and memorable character sketch. Like John Martin himself, he has created a sprawling and brightly coloured canvas on an epic scale.Par Mary S. Lovell. 2009
When she disappeared in 1937 over a shark-infested sea, Amelia Earhart had lived up to her wish - internationally famous,…
a daring and pioneering aviator, and ambassador extraordinary for the United States. Married to a man with a genius for publicity, her life was crowded, demanding and adventurous. Mary S. Lovell's superb biography examines a legend to reveal the pressures and influences that drove Amelia, and shows how her life, career and manner of death foreshadowed the tragedies and excesses of a media-dominated age.Par Brian Moynahan. 2007
Forgotten Soldiers is an enthralling work of military history that shows how the courage, intelligence or simple good fortune of…
the individual can exert a decisive influence on the outcome of a battle or campaign. It tells the stories of fifteen unsung heroes, none of a rank higher than major, whose deeds changed the course of important battles and - arguably - the course of history. These vivid and gripping accounts - largely drawn from the Second World War, but with tales too from other conflicts - have each been selected to illustrate one of the dictums of the great Prussian theorist of war, Carl von Clausewitz, about the importance of having the right man in the right place at the right time. From the Roman standard bearer who plunged into the waves off Deal in 55 BC, saving Julius Caesar's military honour and political career, to the young Israeli tank lieutenant who almost single-handedly stalled the advancing Syrian armour in 1973, these are above all tales of courage. But it is not just courage that wins wars, as these stories demonstrate: such elements as surprise, determination, good intelligence, chance, insight, inventiveness and clear thinking all play their parts in eventual victory. And it may only take one man, often of lowly rank, his name largely forgotten, to embody such qualities for the effect to be felt around the world.Par Damian Harvey. 2014
Christopher Columbus sailed the seas in search of the perfect trade route - find out how his life and explorations…
helped to change the world!Discover the stories of people who have helped to shape history, ranging from early explorers such as Christopher Columbus to more modern figures like Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web.These chapter books combine historical fact with engaging narrative and humourous illustration, perfect for the newly independent reader.