Best of
European-History

1963

The Making of the English Working Class


E.P. Thompson - 1963
    E.P. Thompson shows how the working class took part in its own making & recreates the whole life experience of people who suffered loss of status & freedom, who underwent degradation & who yet created a culture & political consciousness of great vitality. "Thompson's book has been called controversial, but perhaps only because so many have forgotten how explosive England was during the Regency & the early reign of Victoria. Without any reservation, The Making of the English Working Class is the most important study of those days since the classic work of the Hammonds."--Commentary "Mr Thompson's deeply human imagination & controlled passion help us to recapture the agonies, heroisms & illusions of the working class as it made itself. No one interested in the history of the English people should fail to read his book."--Times Literary Supplement

The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community


William H. McNeill - 1963
    In it, McNeill challenges the Spengler-Toynbee view that a number of separate civilizations pursued essentially independent careers, and argues instead that human cultures interacted at every stage of their history. The author suggests that from the Neolithic beginnings of grain agriculture to the present major social changes in all parts of the world were triggered by new or newly important foreign stimuli, and he presents a persuasive narrative of world history to support this claim. In a retrospective essay titled "The Rise of the West after Twenty-five Years," McNeill shows how his book was shaped by the time and place in which it was written (1954-63). He discusses how historiography subsequently developed and suggests how his portrait of the world's past in The Rise of the West should be revised to reflect these changes. "This is not only the most learned and the most intelligent, it is also the most stimulating and fascinating book that has ever set out to recount and explain the whole history of mankind. . . . To read it is a great experience. It leaves echoes to reverberate, and seeds to germinate in the mind."—H. R. Trevor-Roper, New York Times Book Review

The Hunting Of Force Z


Richard Hough - 1963
    A famous account of one of the most dramatic and tragic episodes of the Second World War * Published to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the outbreak of World War II * Also famous as a major television documentary under the same title

The Fate of Admiral Kolchak


Peter Fleming - 1963
    It helps us to understand why Kolchak, former commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, hated the Reds.He led a counter revolution centered in Omsk, where he was installed as Supreme Ruler of All the Russias. Despite the gingerly support of American, British, French and Japanese forces, Omsk fell to the Red Army, doomed by its corruption and incompetence.Kolchak was handed over to the Soviets. This book throws light on Kolchak's nine-day interrogation in gaol and his fate.

The Great Captain


Mary Purcell - 1963
    Biography of Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba, Commander in Chief of the the Spanish Armies during Spain's Golden Age of Conquest and Exploration.