Category: History

By John Abernethy

From prehistoric Scotland to the 2014 referendum for independence, this little booklet covers the entire major occasions in Scottish history.

A concise and perfect consultant to Scottish heritage and the way Scotland has emerge as what it really is today.

Key occasions, humans and areas include:
• The Union of the Crowns
• Bonnie Prince Charlie
• conflict of Bannockburn
• Culloden
• Burns Night
• Hogmanay
• Alexander Graham Bell
• Referendum 2014

Collins Little publication of Scottish historical past is a treasure in itself and is ideal for any Scotland fanatic.

By Jonny Zucker, Ivor Baddiel

Why do humans make predictions? What used to be the 1st prediction? And why can we supply them any credence whatsoever?

The first end-of-the-world prediction used to be recorded one moment after the massive Bang, and because then it has develop into the father of all predictions with, so far, nobody getting it correct. people were round for roughly 200,000 years, with little or no evolutionary distinction, and but we nonetheless haven't built X-ray eyes or the power to fly. This e-book examines the predictions which were made because the sunrise of time on numerous topics, from the top of the area and the human physique to international warming, robots within the place of work, teleportation, and house exploration. With a witty and clean tone, the authors learn how those predictions happened and why, and expense them for retrospective accuracy.

By Mike Rapport

The Napoleonic Wars have an all-important position within the heritage of Europe, leaving their mark on eu and international societies in quite a few methods. in lots of ecu nations, they supplied the stimulus for radical social and political change--particularly in Spain, Germany, and Italy--and are usually considered in those locations because the start line in their smooth histories.

In this Very brief advent, Mike Rapport offers a compact assessment of those pivotal wars. He starts off with the French Revolution and the French innovative wars of 1792-1803, which set the degree for the increase of Napoleon, after which examines the Napoleonic Wars in acts--the years during which the French ruled the eu panorama and the years while an allied Europe fought again, resulting in Napoleon's ultimate defeat on the conflict of Waterloo. Rapport sheds gentle at the social, political, and institutional elements of battle within the Napoleonic period, and he offers a desirable dialogue of the methods and capacity with which those wars have been fought, taking a look at the strategies, innovations, and weaponry of the time. ultimately, he illuminates the importance of the wars, and their legacy, in either particular nationwide contexts and from a much wider international viewpoint.

By Will Durant, Ariel Durant

The tale of Civilization, quantity IX: A background of civilization in Western Europe from 1715 to 1756, with detailed emphasis at the clash among faith and philosophy. this can be the 9th quantity of the vintage, Pulitzer Prize-winning sequence.

By John McMillian, Timothy Patrick McCarthy

Protest Nation is a consultant during the speeches, letters, broadsides, essays, and manifestos that shape the spine of the yankee radical culture within the 20th century. With examples from socialists, feminists, union organizers, civil-rights staff, homosexual and lesbian activists, and environmentalists that experience served as beacons for hundreds of thousands, the amount additionally comprises short introductory essays via the editors that offer a wealthy biographical and ancient context for every choice incorporated. decisions contain a fiery speech by way of socialist Eugene Debs, an outstanding treatise on animal liberation through Peter Singer, "Silent Spring" by means of Rachel Carson, Harvey Milk's "The desire Speech" and so forth.

By Arnulf Krause

'Seeräuber' bedeutet das Wort Wikinger eigentlich und diese Bezeichnung spiegelt auch intestine den Schrecken wider, den die Nordmänner vom nine. bis ins eleven. Jahrhundert über die südlich an ihre Gefilde grenzenden Gebiete brachten. Das Wissen um Gold in den Tempeln der Christen lockte sie aus dem Norden. In kleinen Trupps wurden Klöster und Dörfer geplündert, Land in England erobert und besiedelt, Städte in Irland und Russland gegründet und sogar Raubzüge bis ans Mittelmeer unternommen. used to be genau die Völker des heutigen Skandinaviens veranlasste, ihre Heimat zu verlassen und fremde Gebiete heimzusuchen, wird hier näher betrachtet. Der Autor erläutert, warum einfache Bauern und Fischer auf Handels- und Raubfahrt gingen, wie die berüchtigten Drachenschiffe entscheidend zum Erfolg der Beutezüge beitrugen und warum die berühmten, martialisch anmutenden Hörnerhelme eine Ausschmückung der Neuzeit sind. Die Entwicklung dieser Nordvölker mit ihrem immer dreisteren Vordringen über Flüsse ins Inland und dem Ausbau der anfangs nur blitzartigen Überfälle zu lang anhaltenden Belagerungen und Erpressungen wird ebenso geschildert, wie das Entstehen von Bündnissen mit christlichen Herrschern und die Besiedlung der Britischen Inseln und Islands. Warum die Wikingerzeit als Wiege der nordeuropäischen Nationen gilt, wie sich Sprachen und Königreiche herausbildeten, die heidnische Mythologie durch das Christentum abgelöst wurde und wie die speedy überall in der damals bekannten Welt überlieferten und gefürchteten Abenteuerfahrten der Nordmänner vonstatten gingen, berichtet der Historiker und Skandinavist Arnulf Krause.

Arnulf Krause ist promovierter Germanist und Skandinavist, erfolgreicher Sachbuchautor und Experte für germanische Heldensagen und die Dichtung der Edda. Er lehrt als Honorarprofessor am Institut für Germanistik, Vergleichende Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft der Universität Bonn.

By Laird Scranton

"China's Cosmological Prehistory takes your next step in evaluating the production traditions of old cultures. In it, Scranton demonstrates how cross-cultural comparisons can lead us to new insights in regards to the attainable meanings of vague historical myths and symbols." (Walter Cruttenden, writer of misplaced superstar of fantasy and Time)

Building on his vast examine into the sacred symbols and production myths of the Dogon of Africa and people of historic Egypt, India, and Tibet, Laird Scranton investigates the myths, symbols, and traditions of prehistoric China, supplying additional proof that the cosmology of all historical cultures arose from a unmarried now misplaced resource. Scranton explores the basic similarities among the language that de-fined historical chinese language cosmology and that of different construction traditions, revealing the connections among the phonetic constitution of the phrases, their glyphs, and their use. He demonstrates awesome parallels among the earliest structures of writing in China and the hieroglyphs of historic Egypt. He examines the eight degrees of production in Taoism and the cosmological origins of chinese language ancestor worship, legendary emperors, the zodiac, the mandala, and the I Ching. He info the elemental ideas of land use in historical China relating to the symbolism of a Buddhist stupa and the Dogon granary, ritual shrines which are additionally the primary symbols of different production traditions. figuring out the genuine meanings of those image complexes additionally unearths the subtle medical realizing of those historical cultures, for those production symbols at once correlate with our sleek realizing of atoms and the vigorous make-up of topic. In exploring chinese language cosmological traditions, Scranton sheds new mild at the rivalry that the sacred wisdom of the ancients is the legacy of an prior tradition who gave primitive humanity the instruments they had to beginning the 1st recognized civilizations.

By Gerard DELACROIX

By Yossi Klein Halevi

In Like Dreamers, acclaimed journalist Yossi Klein Halevi interweaves the tales of a bunch of 1967 paratroopers who reunited Jerusalem, tracing the historical past of Israel and the divergent ideologies shaping it from the Six-Day battle to the present.

Following the lives of 7 younger contributors from the fifty fifth Paratroopers Reserve Brigade, the unit accountable for restoring Jewish sovereignty to Jerusalem, Halevi unearths how this band of brothers performed pivotal roles in shaping Israel’s future lengthy after their old victory. whereas they labored jointly to reunite their nation in 1967, those males harbored greatly diversified visions for Israel’s future.

One emerges on the vanguard of the non secular payment stream, whereas one other is instrumental within the 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. One turns into a driver within the development of Israel’s capitalist economic system, whereas one other ardently defends the socialist kibbutzim. One is a number one peace activist, whereas one other is helping create an anti-Zionist terror underground in Damascus.

Featuring an 8 pages of black-and-white images and maps, Like Dreamers is a nuanced, in-depth examine those various males and the conflicting ideals that experience helped to outline glossy Israel and the center East.

By Douglas E. Streusand

Islamic Gunpowder Empires provides readers with a historical past of Islamic civilization within the early glossy global via a comparative exam of Islam’s 3 maximum empires—the Ottomans (centered in what's now Turkey), the Safavids (in smooth Iran), and the Mughals (ruling the Indian subcontinent). writer Douglas Streusand explains the origins of the 3 empires; compares the ideological, institutional, army, and financial participants to their good fortune; and analyzes the reasons in their upward push, enlargement, and supreme transformation and decline. Streusand depicts the 3 empires as part of an built-in overseas process extending from the Atlantic to the Straits of Malacca, emphasizing either the connections and the conflicts inside of that process. He provides the empires as advanced polities during which Islam is one political and cultural part between many. The remedy of the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires comprises modern scholarship, dispels universal misconceptions, and gives a good platform for extra research.