Best of
European-History

1978

O Holocausto - Uma História dos Judeus da Europa na Segunda Guerra Mundial


Martin Gilbert - 1978
    It is virtually a day-by-day account, in men and women's own words, of the horrifying events of the Holocaust - the Nazi attempt to exterminate people of the Jewish religion.

The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy


Martin Gilbert - 1978
    It is virtually a day-by-day account, in men and women's own words, of the horrifying events of the Holocaust - the Nazi attempt to exterminate people of the Jewish religion.

Legionnaire: Five Years in the French Foreign Legion


Simon Murray - 1978
    Yet in 1960, Simon Murray traveled alone to Paris, Marseilles, and ultimately Algeria to fulfill the toughest contract of his life: a five-year stint in the Legion. Along the way, he kept a diary.Legionnaire is a compelling, firsthand account of Murray’s experience with this legendary band of soldiers. This gripping journal offers stark evidence that the Legion’s reputation for pushing men to their breaking points and beyond is well deserved. In the fierce, sun-baked North African desert, strong men cracked under brutal officers, merciless training methods, and barbarous punishments. Yet Murray survived, even thrived. For he shared one trait with these hard men from all nations and backgrounds: a determination never to surrender.

Most Secret War


R.V. Jones - 1978
    Jones's account of his part in British Scientific Intelligence between 1939 and 1949. It was his responsibility to anticipate German applications of science to warfare, so that their new weapons could be countered before they were used. Much of his work had to do with radio navigation, as in the Battle of the Beams, with radar, as in the Allied Bomber Offensive and in the preparations for D-Day and in the war at sea.He was also in charge of intelligence against the V-1 (flying bomb) and the V-2 (rocket) retaliations weapons and, although the Germans were some distance away from success, against their nuclear weapons.

The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Volume 1: The Renaissance


Quentin Skinner - 1978
    The work is intended to be both an introduction to the period for students, and a presentation and justification of a particular approach to the interpretation of historical texts. Quentin Skinner gives an outline account of all the principal texts of the period, discussing in turn the chief political writings of Dante, Marsiglio, Bartolus, Machiavelli, Erasmus and more, Luther and Calvin, Bodin and the Calvinist revolutionaries. But he also examines a very large number of lesser writers in order to explain the general social and intellectual context in which these leading theorists worked. He thus presents the history not as a procession of 'classic texts' but are more readily intelligible. He traces by this means the gradual emergence of the vocabulary of modern political thought, and in particular the crucial concept of the State.

Courier from Warsaw


Jan Nowak-Jeziorański - 1978
     Jan Nowak-Jezioranski (1914-2005) was a Polish journalist, writer, politician, social worker and patriot. He served during the Second World War as one of the most notable resistance fighters of the Home Army. He is best remembered for his work as an emissary shuttling between the commanders of the Home Army and the Polish Government in Exile in London and other Allied governments which gained him the nickname "Courier from Warsaw", and for his participation in the Warsaw Uprising. After the war he worked as the head of the Polish section of Radio Free Europe, and later as a security advisor to the US presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century


Barbara W. Tuchman - 1978
    Barbara Tuchman anatomizes the century, revealing both the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived.

Bloody Mary: The Life of Mary Tudor


Carolly Erickson - 1978
    Her death was a national holiday for 200 years. But, in this biography, Carolly Erickson tells of how she survived an agonizing adolescence and how after winning the throne, she met her challenges with courage.

The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow: Prelude to Doom


Adam Czerniaków - 1978
    But there is more to the story than the tragic death of one man among so many millions. Czerniakow was for almost three years the chairman of the Warsaw Judenrat - a Jew, devoted to his people, who served as the Nazi-sponsored mayor of the Warsaw Ghetto. His personal dealings with the German authorities bring to this daily record of events a depth of knowledge, accuracy of detail, and panorama of view that was possible to no other participant in the epic prelude to the final doom of the largest captive Jewish community in Eastern Europe. This secret journal is not only the testimony of an unbearable personal burden but the documentary of the Ghetto s terminal agony. It is the most important diary to emerge from the Holocaust."A tale of Kafkaesque horror." - Houston Chronicle.

Revolt on the Clyde


William Gallacher - 1978
    This autobiography relates to his early years in the Social Democratic Federation, the struggles to form workers' and soldiers' councils on Clydeside during the First World War and his meeting with Lenin in 1920. Gallacher gives a vivid account of the upheavals in Glasgow immediately following the war, which culminated in the Battle of George Square in 1919 and also describes the formation and turbulent early years of the British Communist Party of which he was a founding member. Revolt on the Clyde is a forceful and inspiring portrait of militant activity in an era whose struggles are still resounding today. First published in 1936, now with an introduction by Michael McGahey, former President of the Scottish Area of the National Union of Mineworkers, Gallacher's book provides us with valuable insights into key years of the formation of Scotland's distinctive political culture.

To Kill Hitler: Plots on the Führer’s Life


Herbert Molloy Mason - 1978
     It was the period of the “good” German, going along with the regime, controlled by the strident coercion of state propaganda or the brutality of the SS, overcome by lethargy or convinced that Hitler and his juggernaut were Germany’s destiny. But not all Germans. A few belonged, in the words of Winston Churchill, to the “greatest and most noble group in the political history of our times”. This is the story of these few who tried, by their own hand, to change the course of history by assassinating Hitler. Beginning in 1938, with a kidnap plan by General Ludwig Beck and Colonel Hans Oster, one desperate attempt followed another. At first, the motivation was to prevent the outbreak of another world war, later to stave off the ruination of Germany, and finally to salvage what little was left of personal honour. The would-be assassins included Wehrmacht officers, hardened company commanders led by Captain Freiherr Georg von Boeselager, noblemen such as Count Claus von Stauffenberg, a meek cabinetmaker, the patient Georg Elser, and Maurice Bavard, a drop-out from a French seminary. As one failure followed another — sometimes because of technical malfunctions, more often because of Hitler’s legendary animal instinct for danger — new assassins arose, driven to try again. In To Kill Hitler Herbert Molloy Mason investigates what it was that drove the would-be assassins on. His minute-by-minute descriptions of how they stalked the world’s biggest game make gripping reading, as events move inexorably from the first sparks of resistance to the Götterdämmerung of 1944 and 1945, when Hitler exacted his terrible revenge. Herbert Molloy Mason (1927-2013) was a noted writer of military history, and has written sixteen books, including The Lafayette Escadrille and The Rise of the Luftwaffe. He lived in San Antonio, Texas with his wife who was an artist.

Main Currents of Western Thought: Readings in Western Europe Intellectual History from the Middle Ages to the Present


Franklin L. Baumer - 1978
    On its initial publication in 1952, Main Currents of Western Thought did just that.  In the years since its first appearance, Main Currents has remained unquestionably the leading reader in its field. The illuminating short essays that introduce sections and subsections are well known, but the continuing usefulness of any reader depends upon the quality of its selections. Franklin Le Van Baumer has sought out passages that best represent and illuminate the ideas and preoccupations of each age. He has found them in the works of the great, including Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Luther, Newton, Voltaire, Darwin, Whitehead, and Freud. But he has also discovered telling statements in writings less widely known: Ramón Lull on chivalry (13th century), Henry Peacham on “the complete gentleman” and Leonard Busher on religious liberty (both 17th century), Louis-René de la Chalotais on education (18th century), Samuel Smiles on “self-help” (19th century) and Virgil Gheorgiu on mechanization (20th century).

Milton and the English Revolution


Christopher Hill - 1978
    Hill uses the learning gathered in a lifetime's study of 17th-century England to carry out a major reassessment of Milton as man, politician, poet and, above all, religious thinker.

Germany 1866-1945


Gordon A. Craig - 1978
    Craig, author of several distinguished books including The Politics of the Prussian Army 1640-1945 ('55), has written a magisterial history of Germany from Prussia's 1866 triumph over Austria at Koeniggroetz to the destruction of the 3rd Reich in 1945. His story focuses upon the two dominating personalities of the period: Bismarck, the "great star" whose genius & penetration are undeniable, but whose achievement "had its 'night side' as well as its 'day side,'" & Hitler, who, unlike the Iron Chancellor, was "sui generis a force without a real historical past." Craig agrees with Dahrendorf (Society & Democracy in Germany) that, paradoxically, it was precisely because he lacked roots in tradition that Hitler could destroy the major obstacle to its progress towards a liberal modernity--"the conservative-militaristic concern that had dominated politics in the Wilhelmine period, done everything possible to shorten the life of the Weimar Republic & elevated him to power in 1933." The concentration on these two figures in no way represents a failure to appreciate institutional, economic & social factors of development. A major part of the story--the place & treatment of women under the Empire, Weimar & Hitler--receives an overdue coherent treatment as do religion & education. Craig (J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Stanford) displays an equally keen appreciation of the role of culture. In particular, he forcefully portrays the flight from political responsibility which was characteristic of most artists & intellectuals under the Empire & which marred the splendid cultural achievements of Weimar as well. The combination of his learning with his gracefully lucid style has yielded a work of historical synthesis more readable & better organized than any book of comparable scope.--Kirkus (edited)

Four Hasidic Masters and their Struggle against Melancholy


Elie Wiesel - 1978
    Portrays four charismatic leaders of the eighteenthand nineteenth-century Hasidic movement in Eastern Europe

The Men-Of-War


David J. Howarth - 1978
    This volume in The Seafarers series describes the warships of England and other countries in the seventeenth century and the battles and wars in which they were involved.

The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism, 1860-1930


Richard Stites - 1978
    The central personalities, their vigorous exchange of ideas, the social and political events that marked the emerging ideal of emancipation--all come to life in this absorbing and dramatic account. The author's history begins with the feminist, nihilist, and populist impulses of the 1860s and 1870s, and leads to the social mobilization campaigns of the early Soviet period.

The Secret War (Pen & Sword Military Classics)


Brian Johnson - 1978
    Orginally a TV tie-in expanded from the BBC televison series, the book covers the behind-the-scenes aspects of the fight by the 'back room' scientists and technicians of WW2, including the battles against the Luftwaffe navigational beams, the V-1 and V-2 flying bombs, the development of radar, the battle against the u-boats, countering the magnetic mine, and the breaking of the codes produced by the Enigma machines.

The Origin Of The Idea Of Crusade


Carl Erdmann - 1978
    Baldwin, will be forthcoming.

The Great Explorers: The European Discovery of America


Samuel Eliot Morison - 1978
    An abridgement of the two-volume work, The European Discovery of America, which describes the early voyages that led to the discovery of the New World.

Burn After Reading: The Espionage History of World War II


Ladislas Farago - 1978
     It was fought in clandestine operations and through the daring acts of spies and saboteurs from both Allied and Axis forces. Ladislas Farago, a former US intelligence chief, uncovers the lengths that the various nations went to in order to win the war. Looking at each nation individually, from Britain with MI.5 to Germany and its division called Abwehr under Wilhelm Canaris, America with the O.S.S. to France’s Deuxième Bureau, Farago exposes how sophisticated and successful their intelligence services were. Burn After Reading explains how espionage and counter-intelligence was operated throughout the war, providing details on a number of missions that were undertaken. Farago, through a number of vivid biographical sketches, details how it was not just intelligence services that shaped espionage during World War Two, but also how individuals, military and civilian, made their impact. This fascinating work is essential reading for anyone interested in what Farago described as “a kind of Fourth Estate of war.” Ladislas Farago was a chief of research and planning in the U.S. Navy’s Special Warfare Branch before becoming an author. He wrote a number of best-selling books on history and espionage and a number of his works were made into films. Burn After Reading was first published in 1961 and he died in 1980.

Freud, Jews and Other Germans: Masters and Victims in Modernist Culture


Peter Gay - 1978
    

Mozart (The Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers)


Peggy Woodford - 1978
    Yet in his lifetime he had known the adulation which only a musical genius of his stature could attract. The supreme prodigy of musical history, he actually started to play the clavier when he was three, and was composing by the time he was five. Until his untimely and lonely death in 1791 -- he was then thirty-five -- he was inspired to write some of the loveliest music ever written: symphonies, concertos, quartets, operas, masses -- all came easily from his pen. Many books have sung his praise.

Winston Churchill


Vladimir Grigoryevich Trukhanovsky - 1978
    His book is an attempt to analyse and interpret the part this prominent political leader of the 20th century played in the history of Britain an in international affairs."Winston Churchill" was first published in 1968 and was favourably received both in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. In its German translation, the book has passed through several editions in the German Democratic Republic. It was recently translated into Bulgarian and Hungarian.The author has revised the text for the English edition, referring to material that has been published over the last decade, and particularly to the books that appeard in 1974 marking the Churchill Centenary.

The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus', 1848-1948


Paul Robert Magocsi - 1978