Best of
18th-Century

2001

Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket


Richard Holmes - 2001
    Red Coat is non-fiction Sharpe, filled with anecdote and humour as well as historical analysis.‘Redcoat is a wonderful book. It is not just a work of history – but one of enthusiasm and unparalleled knowledge.' BERNARD CORNWELLRedcoat is the story of the British soldier from c.1760 until c.1860 – surely one of the most enduring and magnetic subjects of the British past. Solidly based on the letters and diaries of the men who served and the women who followed them, the book is rich in the history of the period. It charts Wolfe's victory and death at Quebec, the American War of Independence, the Duke of York's campaign in Flanders, Wellington's Peninsular War, Waterloo,the retreat from Kabul, the Sikh wars in 1845-9, the Crimean war and the Indian Mutiny.The focus of Redcoat, however, is the individual recollection and experience of the ordinary soldiers serving in the wars fought by Georgian and early Victorian England.Through their stories and anecdotes – of uniforms, equipment,'taking the King's shilling', flogging, wounds, food, barrack life, courage, comradeship, death, love and loss – Richard Holmes provides a comprehensive portrait of a fallible but extraordinarily successful fighting force.'Such a scene of mortal strife from the fire of fifty men was never witnessed…' writes Harry Smith of the 95th Rifles, recounting the death of a brother officer in Spain in 1813. 'I wept over his remains with a bursting heart as, with his company who adored him, I consigned to the grave the last external appearance of Daniel Cadoux. His fame can never die.' Smith's account is typical of the emotions and experiences of the men who appear on every page of this book, sporting their red uniforms to fight for King and country.

Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin


Friedrich Hölderlin - 2001
    Translated from the German by James Mitchell. Readers of these carefully crafted translations by James Mitchell will profit not only by their economy and clarity of expression, but also by the fact that the same translating technique allows Hölderlin's imagery and remarkable spiritual imagination to shine forth in English. Friedrich Hölderlin was born in Germany in 1770 and studied in Tubingen from 1788 to 1793, where he became friends with fellow-students Hegel and Schelling. Thereafter he wrote some of the most fascinating lyric poetry in the history of German literature. Translator James Mitchell has lived and worked for many years in Germany and San Francisco as a writer, book publisher and college teacher.

Jack Frake


Edward Cline - 2001
    Book 1 in this new series introduces the reader to life in 18th Century England, where, despite being one of the freest countries in the world there were rumblings of discontent amongst the citizens and Jake Frake is no exception to this endemic restlessness. From an early age he has developed an independent mind and spirit, a trait that is not openly welcomed for someone of his lowly class. Fate and circumstance leads him to join a band of smugglers and he furthers their cause. Jack himself is sentenced to eight years of servitude in the Colonies and he embarks on a sea voyage aboard the Sparrowhawk, destined for Virginia.

Wellington: A Military Life


Gordon Corrigan - 2001
    His defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 crowned a reputation first won in India at Assaye and then confirmed during the Peninsular War, where he followed up his defense of Portugal by driving the French from Spain. Gordon Corrigan, himself an ex-soldier, examines Wellington’s claims to greatness. Wellington was in many ways the first modern general, combining a mastery of logistics with an ability to communicate with and inspire men of all ranks. He had to contend not only with enemy armies but also with his political masters and an often skeptical public at home. 'Wellington: A Military Life' is a brilliant examination of one of Britain's most important historical figures. ‘Political, fluent, well-researched and extremely argumentative’ – Andrew Roberts. Major Gordon Corrigan is a retired Gurkha officer, a member of the British Commission for Military History and Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Fluent in the Nepali language, he is now a freelance military historian and battlefield lecturer. He is a well known figure on the History channel. He is also the author of ‘Sepoys in the Trenches’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

Selina, Countess of Huntingdon: Her Pivotal Role in the 18th Century Evangelical Awakening


Faith Cook - 2001
    Closely involved for nearly forty years with the leaders of the revival, she gave herself unstintingly to the cause of Christ, contributing sacrificially to the construction of sixty-four chapels, the opening of many more, and the founding of Trevecca College in Wales. Drawing on unpublished sources, Faith Cook gives a deeper and truer-to-life portrait than any previously available. She introduces the reader to a gallery of eighteenth-century personalities, among whom the Countess secured an entrance for the gospel through the powerful preaching of such men as George Whitefield, William Romaine and John Fletcher. This major new biography not only rescues the Countess from undeserved obscurity and misrepresentation, but also shows what God can accomplish through the tireless labours of a godly woman whose heart's desire was that the dear Lamb of God, my best, my eternal, my only Friend should have all dedicated to his service and glory.

The Age of Conversation


Benedetta Craveri - 2001
    Presents the history of the French salons of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, which were presided over by women of the aristocracy and which influenced the development of literary forms and fostered intellectual debate.

Georgiana's World


Amanda Foreman - 2001
    Born Lady Georgiana Spencer, she married the fifth Duke of Devonshire in 1774; within a short space of time she had become the undisputed queen of fashionable society, adored by the Prince Regent, an intimate of Marie-Antoinette, an influential Whig hostess and a darling of the common people. Yet for all her aura of public glamour, Georgiana's personal life was fraught with suffering brought on by her compulsive gambling, which led to insurmountable debts and ignominy, and her search for love, which caused misery and exile. Georgiana's World is the illustrated version of Amanda Foreman's bestselling biography, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and brings a fresh perspective to her life and times. Filled with images of the people and places she actually knew, a series of special features explore such aspects of 18th-century life as aristocracy.

Memoirs Of Madame Vigée Lebrun


Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun - 2001
    This honor catapulted her into contact with both high society and the greatest artists and writers of the day. Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great, Benjamin Franklin, and Lord Byron were only a few of her vast and prestigious clientele. While describing her life as an artist, Vigee Lebrun also provides an exciting account of the dramatic events of her day, particularly the French Revolution and the Terror, from which she barely escaped.

Rivka's Way


Teri Kanefield - 2001
    One day she ventures outside . . and nothing will ever be the same.* Sydney Taylor Book Awards, Notable Book 2001.* Lilith Magazine's 5th Annual Selection of Books for Young Readers* Included in Great Books for Girls, by Kathleen Odean (Random House)"Kanefield weaves a suspenseful tale of friendship and love." Hadassah Magazine. "The details of daily life are completely convincing, the foreign setting is made familiar, and Rivka's character rings true. A rewarding read for the romantically inclined." School Library Journal "A simple but daring adventure." Voice of Youth Advocates "This well-told tale will appeal to fans of both historical fiction and spunky female protagonists." Kliatt, Reviews of Selected Books "When Rivka befriends a man who is unjustly thrown into debtor's jail with no recourse, she is faced with a hard decision, to risk leaving the ghetto again or to abandon this man to a grim fate. Her choice creates an uproar and deeply changes Rivka's view of her world." Lilith Magazine"Readers will be pleased to find another character who shares Rivka's deep sense of justice." Booklist

Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe: Commerce and the Representation of Nature in Early Modern Europe


Pamela Smith - 2001
    Merchants and Marvels addresses how ideas about the representation of nature, in both art and science, underwent a profound transformation between the age of the Renaissance and the early 1700s.

William Blake: The Poems


Nicholas Marsh - 2001
    Chapters on innocence and experience, the natural world, society and personal relationships move from the lyrics and take the reader on towards the later and longer poems, Blake's "Prophetic Books." In the second part, information about Blake's life and work and a comparison of three important critical views, as well as useful suggestions for further reading, provide a bridge towards further study.

I Dwell in Possibility: Women Build a Nation: 1600 to 1920


Donna M. Lucey - 2001
    During the Civil War, plantation mistress Adelicia H.F.A Cheatham outfoxed Union and Confederate soldiers alike to make a fortune cashing in her cotton crop in London. With a 40,000 dollar bounty on her head, Harriet Tubman led slaves to freedom. Molly Brown refused to sink. In I Dwell in Possibility, award-winning author Donna Lucey turns our attention to the pioneering, innovative, and brave ways that women influenced the building of America before they had the right to vote.Through diaries, letters, and rare photographs and art works, this book evokes the many struggles and indispensable contributions of women who forged the nation we know today. Ranging from the outrageous -- daring young woman smoke in the Gilded Age! -- to the heartstopping -- an African-American woman jumps to her death rather than face slavery -- Lucey masterfully reveals that women's contributions to the life of America did not begin only with the right to vote, but long before even the concept of such a right became the American ideal.Intimate, compelling, and richly illustrated, I Dwell in Possibility is a truly unique look at American history.

Kvinnligt mode under två sekel


Britta Hammar - 2001
    A Swedish book of women's garments from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries taken from Swedish museum collections, photographed in color and thoroughly analyzed, along with patterns taken from the garments and complete sewing instructions to reproduce them.

Redcoats: The British Soldier and War in the Americas, 1755-1763


Stephen Brumwell - 2001
    It explores the Army's distinctive society, using new evidence to provide a voice for ordinary soldiers who have previously been ignored by historians. While other books on the period concentrate upon major personalities and events, this study examines events from the perspective of the individual: the experience of combat, captivity among the Indians, the Army's women and the fate of veterans. Stephen Brumwell is a former newspaper journalist and Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Leeds and now works as a freelance writer. He is the author of scholarly articles and the co-author of The Cassell Companion to 18th Century British History (2001). Hb ISBN (2001) 0-521-80783-2

Anthropology of Marxism (Race and Representation)


Cedric J. Robinson - 2001
    The socialist ideal was, he suggests, embedded in Western civilization and its progenic cultures long before the opening of the modern era - and socialist thought did not begin with or depend on the existence of capitalism. Robinson proposes that the cultural, economic and social circumstances which spawned socialism are so diverse that the notion of socialism is best understood as a genetic phenomenon of resistance and should be treated in terms of "socialisms" rather than an enduring singular world-view. Paying particular attention to the impact of social conflicts and political competitions, the book interrogates the social, cultural, institutional and historical materials from which socialisms emerged. In doing so, it exposes the conceptual boundaries and restraints, and the definitive narrative and discursive structures, imposed on and by Engels and Marx in the process of giving a "destiny" to scientific socialism.

Dreaming the Future: The Fantastic Story of Prediction


Clifford A. Pickover - 2001
    In this fascinating book acclaimed author Clifford Pickover presents a nearly exhaustive list of fortune-telling techniques, from the ominous practice of human sacrifice to reading clues on the Internet.Pickover not only explores a vast and colorful array of methods of prediction--including dreaming--he also evaluates the accuracy of some of the most astonishing prophecies made throughout history. Just how accurate were such famous soothsayers as Nostradamus, the Delphic Oracle, Edgar Cayce, the children of Fatima (whose third vision has only recently been revealed), and dozens more?This book takes us one step further by exploring our own inner psyches: Why does looking into the future provide a source of solace in a world filled with uncertainty, disease, and chance? And why do the most noted prognosticators so often warn of natural catastrophes of biblical proportions, such as earthquakes and floods that will signal the end of the world?Through insight and wit, Pickover will unlock the door of your imagination with engrossing mysteries, intriguing illustrations, and even modern patents and computer techniques. Also included is a range of practical experiments and recipes--from Stone Age to New Age.Prepare yourself for a strange but captivating ride!

Andrea Palladio: The Complete Illustrated Works


Guido Beltramini - 2001
    Drawing inspiration from classical architecture, he created harmoniously proportioned villas and palaces in the Italian Veneto region. The influence of his work was wide-ranging, inspiring stately homes across Europe and America, including Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Because of the extent of the impact of his work, it is difficult to determine which buildings are true Palladios those actually designed by him and completed in his lifetime. Andrea Palladio: The Complete Illustrated Works catalogs the body of work truly belonging to Palladio. All 66 works definitively attributed to Palladio are lavishly illustrated here with over 250 contemporary photographs by Pino Guidolotti, and accompanied by extended captions that provide historical and architectural references and document their current condition. The author has also included references from Palladio's famous treatise The Four Books of Architecture. With a brilliant introduction by architectural historian Howard Burns and a comprehensive bibliography of works on Palladio edited by Almut Goldhahn, this beautifully written and sumptuously illustrated compendium is a must for architectural enthusiasts and historians alike.

Fabricating Women: The Seamstresses of Old Regime France, 1675-1791


Clare Haru Crowston - 2001
    In contrast with previous scholarship on women and gender in the early modern period, Clare Haru Crowston asserts that the rise of the absolute state, with its centralizing and unifying tendencies, could actually increase women’s economic, social, and legal opportunities and allow them to thrive in corporate organizations such as the guild. Yet Crowston also reveals paradoxical consequences of the guild’s success, such as how its growing membership and visibility ultimately fostered an essentialized femininity that was tied to fashion and appearances. Situating the seamstresses’ guild as both an economic and political institution, Crowston explores in particular its relationship with the all-male tailors’ guild, which had dominated the clothing fabrication trade in France until women challenged this monopoly during the seventeenth century. Combining archival evidence with visual images, technical literature, philosophical treatises, and fashion journals, she also investigates the techniques the seamstresses used to make and sell clothing, how the garments reflected and shaped modern conceptions of femininity, and guild officials’ interactions with royal and municipal authorities. Finally, by offering a revealing portrait of these women’s private lives—explaining, for instance, how many seamstresses went beyond traditional female boundaries by choosing to remain single and establish their own households—Crowston challenges existing ideas about women’s work and family in early modern Europe. Although clothing lay at the heart of French economic production, social distinction, and cultural identity, Fabricating Women is the first book to investigate this immense and archetypal female guild in depth. It will be welcomed by students and scholars of French and European history, women’s and labor history, fashion and technology, and early modern political economy.

Splendors of Versailles


Jana Martin - 2001
    It provides insight into a gilded court life that has long since vanished and reminds us of the enduring value of the arts and fine craftsmanship.

Medicine and the German Jews: A History


John M. Efron - 2001
    As both physicians and patients, Jews exerted a great influence on the formation of modern medical discourse and practice. This fascinating book investigates the relationship between German Jews and medicine from medieval times until its demise under the Nazis. John Efron examines the rise of the German Jewish physician in the Middle Ages and his emergence as a new kind of secular, Jewish intellectual in the early modern period and beyond. The author shows how nineteenth-century medicine regarded Jews as possessing distinct physical and mental pathologies, which in turn led to the emergence in modern Germany of the 'Jewish body' as a cultural and scientific idea. He demonstrates why Jews flocked to the medical profession in Germany and Austria, noting that by 1933, 50 percent of Berlin's and 60 percent of Vienna's physicians were Jewish. He discusses the impact of this on Jewish and German culture, concluding with the fate of Jewish doctors under the Nazis, whose assault on them was designed to eliminate whatever intimacy had been built up between Germans and their Jew

Philip V of Spain: The King Who Reigned Twice


Henry Kamen - 2001
    His 46-year reign, briefly curtailed in 1724 when he abdicated in favour of his short-lived son, Louis I, was one of the most important in the country's history. This highly readable account is the first biography of Philip V in English. Previous writing on Philip has been largely negative, dismissing him as comic, stupid, and indolent. Henry Kamen demonstrates here, however, that the king initiated significant developments in politics, imperial policy, finance, government, and military affairs that laid the basis of the modern Spanish state. Philip also encouraged literature, the creative arts, and music in ways that brought Spanish culture closer in touch with the rest of Europe, and he dealt authoritatively with issues concerning the autonomy of the provinces of Spain and the role of the monarchy itself. Drawing on contemporary opinion and fresh archival sources, Kamen discusses Philip's character, decisions, and policies. He offers a new assessment of the king's illness (which led earlier historians to view Philip as mad) and evaluates positively the role of his two wives. Kamen's account of Philip as king provides an essential introduction to the study of early eighteenth-century Spain and the Bourbon monarchy.

Bodies Politic: Disease, Death and Doctors in Britain, 1650 1900


Roy Porter - 2001
    Focusing his attention for the first time on visual imagery, Porter examines the ways in which the sick and their healers were represented to the culture at large from the mid-seventeenth to the early twentieth century. The author combines erudition, a sharp sense of humor, and abundant art to show how contrasting conceptions of the healthy and diseased body were mapped onto antithetical notions of the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. He juxtaposes images of disease to illustrations of medical practice, exploring self-presentations by physicians, surgeons, and quacks and showing how practitioners' public identities changed over time. Bodies Politic argues that the human body is the chief signifier and communicator of all manner of meanings religious, moral, political, and medical alike and that pre-scientific medicine was an art that depended heavily on performance, ritual, rhetoric, and theater. Throughout, Porter makes clear the wide metaphorical and symbolic implications of disease and doctoring."

The Best Poems of All Time: Part 1


Leslie PockellOvid - 2001
    Hearing poetry spoken - as it was originally intended to be heard - adds dramatically to your understanding and appreciation of the form. Be moved, amused, and awed by these expert interpretations of even the most familiar poems.Revisit classics through the 1850s such as:"Sonnet 18 (Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day)" by William Shakespeare"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe"Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor ColeridgeOther poets included in this collection are: Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Omar Khayyam, Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Robert Herrick, John Milton, Anne Bradstreet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Alexander Pope, John Keats, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Blake, Robert Burns, John Greenleaf Whittier, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Wordsworth, Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alfred Tennyson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Emily Bronte, and Robert Browning.This is Volume 1 of The Best Poems of All Time. Don't miss Volume 2.

Peter the Great: The Struggle for Power, 1671-1725


Paul Bushkovitch - 2001
    Bushkovitch demonstrates that the interaction of the tsar and the ruling elite was at the core of Russian politics as Peter managed to largely master the contentious elite by a series of compromises, ultimately toward one that favored new men without excluding the aristocrats entirely. The outcome was a new balance of power at the center, and a new Europeanized culture.

The Majesty of Spain: Royal Collections from The Museo del Prado & The Patrimonio Nacional


The Mississippi Arts Pavilion - 2001
    

Joachim Murat - Marshal of France and King of Naples


Andrew Hilliard Atteridge - 2001
    Joachim Murat was born in Gascony, the department of Lot, and although his father was relatively affluent, no-one realized the spectacular rise that would lead him to a the crown of Naples and an indelible imprint on the history of his native France and all of Europe.Atteridge wrote a number of books on the men who worked as satellites to Napoleon, Emperor of the French, his commanders on the battlefield and the brothers he placed, or tried to place in power as a buffer to a vengeful Europe. Marshal Murat has often been caricatured as a dashing cavalry commander with little more brains than the horse he rode, however the portrait here painted is much more complex than the simplistic view carted out by some other historians. More than a superlative leader of cavalry, in the short campaigns of the emergent French army, he grew distant from Napoleon due to constant goadings and rebukes, he was a varied man, vain and pompous, a dedicated family man, yet possibly also cuckold. He was to find a ignominious grave, for firing squad, at Pizzo having attempted to emulate his former master’s march on Paris in his adopted Naples.Highly recommended.Atteridge’s book forms a companion to his other single volume biography of Marshal Ney and his work on the varied personalities on Napoleon’s Brothers.Author- Andrew Hilliard Atteridge (1844–1912)Linked TOC and 7 Illustrations and 3 maps.

The Invention of the Countryside: Hunting, Walking and Ecology in English Literature, 1671-1831


Donna Landry - 2001
    Between the Game Act of 1671 and its repeal in 1831, writers on walking and hunting often held opposed views, but contributed equally to the origins of modern ecology, while sharing a commitment to trespass that preserved common rights in an era of growing privatization.