Best of
European-History

1988

Byzantium: The Early Centuries


John Julius Norwich - 1988
    48 pages ofillustrations, 16 in color. Maps.

Swords around a Throne: Napoleon's Grande Armee


John R. Elting - 1988
    Elting examines every facet of this incredibly complex human machine: its organization, command system, logistics, weapons, tactics, discipline, recreation, mobile hospitals, camp followers, and more. From the army's formation out of the turmoil of Revolutionary France through its swift conquests of vast territories across Europe to its legendary death at Waterloo, this book uses excerpts from soldiers' letters, eyewitness accounts, and numerous firsthand details to place the reader in the boots of Napoleon's conscripts and generals. In Elting's masterful hands the experience is truly unforgettable.

Ukraine: A History


Orest Subtelny - 1988
    In the years since we have seen the dismantling of the Soviet bloc and the restoration of Ukraine's independence - a time of celebration for Ukrainians throughout the world, and of tumultuous change for those in the homeland.With this new edition of "Ukraine: A History," Subtelny revises the story up to the spring of 2000. A new chapter focuses on the achievements and failures of the new state and society in international affairs, internal politics, and economic and social development.Third edition: ISBN 0-8020-4871-4 / 9780802048714 (cloth)Third edition: ISBN 0-8020-8390-0 / 9780802083906 (paper)Third edition: ISBN 1282033956 / 9781282033955 / 9786612033957 (mass market hardcover)Third edition: ISBN 6612033959 / 1442682825 / 9781442682825 (mass market paperback)

Bastogne: The First Eight Days


S.L.A. Marshall - 1988
    General Mcaulliffe decided that despite the odds and the lack of supplies and ammunition his troops would continue to hold the important communication hub of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. This dramatic, yet authoritative account brings all of the action to the fore as the Battered Bastards of Bastogne wrote their names into legend."THIS STORY OF BASTOGNE was written from interviews with nearly all the commanders and staff officers and many of the men who participated in the defense of Bastogne during the first phase of that now celebrated operation—the days during which the American forces were surrounded by forces of the enemy…Thus it is essentially the account of how a single strong defensive force was built from separate commands of armor, airborne infantry and tank destroyers—a force convinced that it could not be beaten."-Introduction.

Pearls of Childhood: The Poignant True Wartime Story of a Young Girl Growing Up in an Adopted Land


Vera Gissing - 1988
    Throughout the war years, Vera kept a diary, recording her day-to-day experiences, her longing for her parents, her hopes, and her prayers for the freedom of her country. By the time she returned to Prague to set up home with her aunt in 1945, she knew that both her parents had died—her mother in Belsen, her father on a death march. She came back to England in 1949 and has lived there ever since. The memories and emotions rekindled by a reunion of the Czech school in Wales where she was educated encouraged Vera to go back to her diaries and the letters from her parents that she had not touched for 40 years, resulting in this powerful and moving account of the life of one child growing up in extraordinary circumstances.

The Battle that Shook Europe: Poltava and the Birth of the Russian Empire


Peter Englund - 1988
    In 1700, the Tsar combined with Denmark, Saxony, and Poland to attack Swedish hegemony in the North. When the forces finally defeated King Charles XII of Sweden in 1708 at Poltava, in the Ukraine, it proved the turning-point of the Great Northern War, heralding the collapse of the Swedish Empire and the rise of Russia, the effects of which would be felt for almost three hundred years. Swedish historian Peter Englund’s vivid account of the three violent days of battle is an internationally acclaimed classic of military history.

They Have Uncrowned Him


Marcel Lefebvre - 1988
    Covers the origins of liberalism, the subversion of orthodoxy by Vatican II, the decline of the missionary spirit by dialogue, the bad fruits of post-Conciliar reforms, and his vision of restoration. Includes Cardinal Ottavianis "On the Relations Between Church and State" and "On Religious Tolerance", replaced at Vatican II by "Dignitatis Humanae".They Have Uncrowned Him, which is subtitled "From Liberalism to Apostasy: the Conciliar Tragedy", began as a series of conferences on liberalism prepared by Archbishop Lefebvre for the education of the seminarians at Ecône. The purpose of these conferences, the Archbishop tells us in his preface, was "to enlighten the understanding of these future priests about the most serious and most harmful error of modern times" and "to permit them to pass a judgement consistent with the truth and with the faith on all the consequences and manifestations of atheistic liberalism and of liberal Catholicism" (p. xiii). The Archbishop's thesis is straightforward: The dramatic decline in faith and morals which followed the Second Vatican Council, and the effects of which are today observable among Catholics in every place, is to be attributed to the adoption by the Church of these liberal principles as its own by means of the very Council itself.

Tigers in Combat II


Wolfgang Schneider - 1988
    Based on combat diaries, the text tells the history of each unit, but most of the book is devoted to photos of the tanks and the men who manned them. It offers as unique and comprehensive a look at these lethal machines as is possible sixty years after World War II.

The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590-1710


David Stevenson - 1988
    The origins of freemasonry are traced to Scotland in this account of the creation of an international movement through a blending of medieval mythology and late Renaissance intellectual influences.

The Berlin Raids


Martin Middlebrook - 1988
    Bomber Command s Commander-in-Chief, Sir Arthur Harris, hoped to wreak Berlin from end to end and produce a state of devastation in which German surrender is inevitable . He dispatched nineteen major raids between August 1943 and March 1944 more than 10,000 aircraft sorties dropped over 30,000 tons of bombs on Berlin. It was the RAF s supreme effort to end the war by aerial bombing. But Berlin was not destroyed and the RAF lost more than 600 aircraft and their crews. The controversy over whether the Battle of Berlin was a success or failure has continued ever since. Martin Middlebrook brings to this subject considerable experience as a military historian. In preparing his material he collected documents from both sides (many of the German ones never before used); he has also interviewed and corresponded with over 400 of the people involved in the battle and has made trips to Germany to interview the people of Berlin and Luftwaffe aircrews. He has achieved the difficult task of bringing together both sides of the Battle of Berlin the bombing force and the people on the ground to tell a coherent, single story. The author describes the battle, month by month, as the bombers waited for the dark nights, with no moon, to resume their effort to destroy Berlin and end the war. He recounts the ebb and flow of fortunes, identifying the tactical factors that helped first the bombers, then the night fighters, to gain the upper hand. Through the words of the participants, he brings to the reader the hopes, fears and bravery of the young bomber aircrews in the desperate air battles that were waged as the Luftwaffe attempted to protect their capital city. And he includes that element so often omitted from books about the bombing war the experiences of ordinary people in the target city, showing how the bombing destroyed homes, killed families, affected morale and reduced the German war effort. Martin Middlebrook s meticulous attention to detail makes The Bomber Battle of Berlin one of his most accomplished book to date. Martin Middlebrook has written many other books that deal with important turning-points in the two world wars, including The First Day on the Somme, Kaiser s Battle, The Peenemunde Raid, The Somme Battlefields (with Mary Middlebrook), The Nuremberg Raid 30-21st March 1944 and Arnhem 1944 (all republished and in print with Pen and Sword). Martin Middlebrook is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and lives near Stroud, Gloucestershire."

Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution


Richard Stites - 1988
    In this study, historian Richard Stites offers a vivid portrayal of revolutionary life and the cultural factors--myth, ritual, cult, and symbol--that sustained it, and describes the principal forms of utopian thinking and experimental impulse. Analyzing the inevitable clash between the authoritarian elements in the Bolshevik's vision and the libertarian behavior and aspirations of large segments of the population, Stites interprets the pathos of utopian fantasy as the key to the emotional force of the Bolshevik revolution which gave way in the early 1930s to bureaucratic state centralism and a theology of Stalinism.

Noor-Un-Nisa Inayat Khan: Madeleine: George Cross, M.B.E, Croix de Guerre with Gold Star


Jean Overton Fuller - 1988
    When war broke out, in 1939, she was already achieving her first successes, As a harpist she had been heard at the Salle Erard. Her stories were appearing on the children's page of 'Le Figaro' and broadcast on Radiodiffusion Francaise, her 'Twenty Jataka Tales' being brought out by a London publisher; she was just founding a children's newspaper. Later she was betrayed to the Sicherheitsdienst and as a prisoner of importance was held at their HQ on the Avenue Foch. After a daring attempt to escape, via the roof, she refused to give parole and was sent to Germany, where she was kept for most of the time in chains, before being shot at Dachau. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross and the Crois de Guerre.

Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart


Frank McLynn - 1988
    He argues powerfully that failure was far from inevitable and history in 1745 came close to taking quite a different turn.

Night Over Day Over Night


Paul Watkins - 1988
    His struggle to survive a war he scarcely comprehends is rendered in the urgent, beautifully spare, memorable prose of a born storyteller.

The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders


Ernst Klee - 1988
    This gruesomely sentimental and unmistakably authentic title introduces an disturbing collection of photographs, diaries, letters home, and confidential reports created by the executioners and sympathetic observers of the Holocaust. "The Good Old Days" reveals startling new evidence of the inhumanity of recent twentieth century history and is published now as yet another irrefutable response to the revisionist historians who claim to doubt the historic truth of the Holocaust.

The Life of the Very Noble King of Castile and Leon, St Ferdinand III


C. Fernandez de Castro - 1988
    With that spirit, he never lost a battle in his efforts to free Catholic Spain from Islamic domination. Saint Ferdinand is a true role model of Catholic manhood. Translated from the Spanish work of Sister Maria Del Carmen Fernández de Castro Cabeza, this is a book you will not be able to put down.

Why Did The Heavens Not Darken?: The "Final Solution" In History


Arno J. Mayer - 1988
    

Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations


Donald M. Nicol - 1988
    It aims to show how, with the encouragement of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Venetians came to dominate first the Genoese and thereafter the whole Byzantine economy. At the same time, the author points to those important cultural and, above all, political reasons why the relationship between the two states was always inherently unstable.

The Experience Of World War I


Jay Murray Winter - 1988
    In The Experience of World War I, J.M. Winter marshalls acomprehensive range of historical materials, hundreds of vivid illustrations, and numerous eye-witness accounts to provide an illuminating and gripping chronicle of this cataclysmic event and its aftermath. How did the assassination of one man, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, trigger such vast devastation? What was combat like for the common soldier? Why did the generals persist in large-scale offensives after catastrophic losses early in the war? What was the impact of the war on European politics, the world economy, and the arts? To answer these and myriad other questions, Winter examines the war year by year, describing the conflict as it was experienced by politicians, generals, soldiers and civilians. Illustrated with hundreds of color and black-and-white photographs, the book uncoversmany intriguing aspects of the war: it reveals that soldiers in fact spent only two weeks per month in the front trenches, describes how the father of tycoon Rupert Murdoch broke the story of the disaster at Gallipoli, and outlines the unprecedented logistics problems the military faced (it took 20boxcars of food per day to feed 17,000 men--and there were 5 million men in the British army alone). There is also a wealth of fascinating sidebar material covering a wide variety of secondary topics, from women's war poetry to the sinking of the LusitaniaT. The book is further enhanced by numerousfirst-hand accounts of life during the war, drawn from diaries, memoirs and other writings of both men and women, from all countries and social groups, and it also includes a full chronology, many full-color maps, and tables of essential data. Combining political, military, and social history, this evocative account captures the Great War in all its complexity, from the bloody battles of Verdun, the Somme, and Passchendaele, to the flood of post-war literary and artistic works, including All Quiet on the Western Front and Jean Renoir'sfilm La Grande Illusion

The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy


Charles B. Schmitt - 1988
    The Renaissance has attracted intense scholarly attention for over a century, but in the beginning the philosophy of the period was relatively neglected and this is the first volume in English to synthesize for a wider readership the substantial and sophisticated research now available. The volume is organized by branch of philosophy rather than by individual philosopher or by school. The intention has been to present the internal development of different aspects of the subject in their own terms and within their historical context. This structure also emphasizes naturally the broader connotations of philosophy in that intellectual world.

You Shall Not Be Called Jacob Anymore: An Autobiography of a Child of the Holocaust


Jacob Bresler - 1988
    But this was not his destiny. This resilient, emotive eleven-year-old boy grew up far too quickly as the Nazis marched through Poland on their mission to exploit and exterminate the Jewish people. His entire world was literally destroyed, piece-by-piece. Evicted from his home and separated from his family, he was forced to live in ghettos and concentration camps for more than five years. He witnessed the atrocities and failures that shattered nations and devastated generations. Jacob struggled, adapted and learned to survive while facing horrifying circumstances, losing everything except his own humanity. Written decades after his liberation and immigration to a new world, this harrowing, breathtaking, insightful and emotional story follows a young man's journey through innocence, desperation, regret and hope.

The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century


Gerd Tellenbach - 1988
    900 to c. 1125, which is considered both as a set of institutions and as a spiritual body. The first half concentrates on the structures of religious belief and practice in the period 900-1050; the second half concentrates on the revolutionary changes associated with the rise of the papacy to a new level of rulership. It shows how far one can talk of a reform movement, and how the idea and ideal of papal monarchy became both the prisoner and the leader of those who sought for a renewal of Christian life. Tellenbach's survey is the work of a scholar who has been working in the field for over sixty years. It is characterized by the freshness and maturity of its judgments, which cut through many fashionable theories. No other work on this topic offers comparable range, depth and authority.

Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan


David Gilmartin - 1988
    But the evolution of Islam's role in the Pakistan movement has long been debated. This book examines the problem through a detailed study of Muslim politics in the Punjab—Pakistan's largest and most important province—in the decades leading up to India's partition. Gilmartin argues that an understanding of Muslim politics in this period depends on an understanding of the close interaction between the ideology and structure of the British colonial empire on the one hand, and the structure of Islamic organization and ideas on the other.The British imperial state rejected religion as a foundation for its central authority, yet its structure encouraged the development of forms of rural Islam adapted to local organization and to the hierarchical and mediatory ideology of the imperial state. At the same time, alien colonial domination encouraged the growth of "communalism" and eventually of Muslim "nationalism," particularly in Punjab's cities—thus posing new ideological challenges to the British Raj.The tensions inherent in the structure and ideology of colonial organization thus provide the backdrop for the study. Gilmartin's extensive use of private papers, biographies, and autobiographies of prominent as well as less prominent political leaders helps give this study a balanced viewpoint. He also draws on a range of popular and private Urdu materials that lend the book an authentic voice.This study will be welcomed by students of colonial empire and by those interested in Islam's role in the modern world.

A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution


François Furet - 1988
    The ambition of this magnificent volume is not only to present the reader with the research of a wide range of international scholars on those questions, but also to bring one into the heart of the issues still under lively debate. Its form is as original as its goal: neither dictionary, in the traditional sense of the word, nor encyclopedia, it is deliberately limited to some ninety-nine entries organized alphabetically by key words and themes under five major headings: "events," including the Estates General and the Terror; "actors," such as Marie Antoinette, Marat, and Napoleon Bonaparte; "institutions and creations," among them Revolutionary Calendar and Suffrage; "ideas," covering, for example, Ancien Regime, the American Revolution, and Liberty; and "historians and commentators," from Hegel to Tocqueville. In addition, there are synoptic indexes of names and themes that give the reader easy access to the entire volume as well as a key to its profound coherence. What unifies all the varied topics brought together in this dictionary is their authors effort to be critical. As such, the book rejects the dogmatism of closed systems and definitive interpretations. Its aim is less to make a complete inventory of the findings of the history of the French Revolution than to take stock of what remains problematical about those findings; this work thus offers the additional special quality of incorporating the rich historiographical literature unceasingly elaborated since 1789. With "A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution," Francois Furet and Mona Ozouf invite the reader to recross the first two centuries of French democracy in order to gain a better understanding of the origins of the world in which we live today.

A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present


Zvi Y. Gitelman - 1988
    Today, the Jewish population of the former Soviet Union has dwindled to half a million, but remains probably the world's third largest Jewish community. In the intervening century the Jews of that area have been at the center of some of the most dramatic events of modern history -- two world wars, revolutions, pogroms, political liberation, repression, and the collapse of the USSR. They have gone through tumultuous upward and downward economic and social mobility and experienced great enthusiasms and profound disappointments. In startling photographs from the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and with a lively and lucid narrative, A Century of Ambivalence traces the historical experience of Jews in Russia from a period of creativity and repression in the second half of the 19th century through the paradoxes posed by the post-Soviet era. This redesigned edition, which includes more than 200 photographs and two substantial new chapters on the fate of Jews and Judaism in the former Soviet Union, is ideal for general readers and classroom use.

The Spanish Armada


Colin Martin - 1988
    This new edition is based on a fresh examination of archival sources across Europe, combined with the archaeological investigation of some of its wrecked ships off the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. The new edition has been extensively revised to incorporate ten further years of research by the authors and others, and is likely to remain the standard account for years to come.

1941: Our Lives in a World on the Edge


William K. Klingaman - 1988
    

The Burden of Hitler's Legacy


Alfons Heck - 1988
    Only in the waning days of World War II, did he begin to learn of the terror and cruelty that would come to characterize the Nazi reign. And only after years of soul-searching would he begin to accept the role that he had played. This complelling story complements and expands on Heck's autobiography, A Child of Hitler, in which he describes his childhood and life as a member and high-ranking leder of the Hitler Youth. The final chapters of the book introduce us to Heck's relationship with Helen Waterford, author of Commitment to the Dead and a survivor of the Aushwitz death camp. These two met in 1980 and formed a truly unique partnership. Heck and Waterford gave presentations side-by-side to audiences at more than 300 colleges and universities. The final chapter repeats many of the questions audiences would ask and Heck's answers. His openness provides much insight into the how's and why's of the Holocaust.

Saint Jerome in the Renaissance


Eugene F. Rice Jr. - 1988
    Among the most fully studied figures of Christian antiquity was Saint Jerome. Eugene Rice's award-winning book traces the saint's changing images and fortunes from 1300 to 1600 and charts how culture--popular and elite, secular and sacred, pietistic and scholarly--celebrated those aspects of Jerome's life that best suited its own purposes.

Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis (Revised)


Robert N. Proctor - 1988
    Racial Hygiene focuses on how scientists themselves participated in the construction of Nazi racial policy. Robert Proctor demonstrates that the common picture of a passive scientific community coerced into cooperation with the Nazis fails to grasp the reality of what actually happened--namely, that many of the political initiatives of the Nazis arose from within the scientific community, and that medical scientists actively designed and administered key elements of National Socialist policy.The book presents the most comprehensive account to date of German medical involvement in the sterilization and castration laws, the laws banning marriage between Jews and non-Jews, and the massive program to destroy "lives not worth living." The study traces attempts on the part of doctors to conceive of the "Jewish problem" as a "medical problem," and how medical journals openly discussed the need to find a "final solution" to Germany's Jewish and gypsy "problems."Proctor makes us aware that such thinking was not unique to Germany. The social Darwinism of the late nineteenth century in America and Europe gave rise to theories of racial hygiene that were embraced by enthusiasts of various nationalities in the hope of breeding a better, healthier, stronger race of people. Proctor also presents an account of the "organic" health movement that flourished under the Nazis, including campaigns to reduce smoking and drinking, and efforts to require bakeries to produce whole-grain bread. A separate chapter is devoted to the emergence of a resistance movement among doctors in the Association of Socialist Physicians. The book is based on a close analysis of contemporary documents, including German state archives and more than two hundred medical journals published during the period.Proctor has set out not merely to tell a story but also to urge reflection on what might be called the "political philosophy of science"--how movements that shape the policies of nations can also shape the structure and priorities of science. The broad implications of this book make it of consequence not only to historians, physicians, and people concerned with the history and philosophy of science, but also to those interested in science policy and medical ethics.

Subchaser


Edward P. Stafford - 1988
    The commanding officer of subchaser 692 describes the tough little wooden ship's experiences in the Pacific, including the invasion of Sicily in 1943.

The Polish Way: A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and Their Culture


Adam Zamoyski - 1988
     "Adam Zamoyski's The Polish Way is a stunner; a comprehensive history of Poland. . . Clear, calm, beautifully written, its scope is enormous, its story enthralling and its illustrations magnificent." BERNARD LEVIN, The Times of London "Mr. Zamoyski, although born in New York and educated at Oxford, writes as an insider. Is this because the Zamoyskis have for the last 400 years been playing a leading role in Poland, a role often characterized by a greater public spirit and sense of responsibility than those possessed by the other magnate families? Mr. Zamoyski believes there is a need for a new synthesis of Poland's past because of the heavily nationalist and political coloring of existing works. 'Foreign historians,' he writes, 'have patronised, while Poles have fought back with all the handicaps of the besieged.' He strives to place Polish history more squarely in its European context, and he pays special attention to developments that had repercussions beyond the boundaries of the country. For example, he emphasizes the phenomenon of the Polish parliamentary state in Central Europe, its spectacular 16th century success and its equally spectacular disintegration two centuries later. . . This is popular history at its best, neither shallow nor simplistic. . . lavish illustrations, good maps and intriguing charts and genealogical tables make this book particularly attractive." New York Times Book Review Publishing House: Hippocrene Books, New York 1993 Softcover book measuring 6" x 9.5" 422 pages English Language Version All books are shipped through t

Byzantium: Revised Edition


Rowena Loverance - 1988
    The Byzantines regarded their earthly empire as a reflection of God's empire in heaven, and this ideology was manifested in their politics, religion, and art. In this introduction to the history of Byzantium, from the fourth to the fourteenth century, Rowena Loverance draws on the British Museum's rich collections of spectacular Byzantine silver, ivories, jewelry, and icons, as well as pieces from the empire's Persian and Germanic neighbors. This revised edition, featuring a new introduction, is updated to include the most recent finds and interpretations.

The China Consuls: British Consular Officers, 1843 1943


P.D. Coates - 1988
    Coates, a former consul in China, here recounts the story of British consular officers in China between 1843 and 1943. Exiled in an alien country that was often resentful of Western imperialism, British officers confronted riots, civil wars, disease, and long separations from their families. A book of interest to the general reader and the scholar, China Consuls adds a new chapter to Chinese and British history

The Illustrated Gospels


Crown Publishing Group - 1988
    Beautifully detailed medieval art and Illustrations from Books of Hours illuminate this edition.