Ten lyrical and passionate essays on the culture, art, and history of Western Europe written from the perspective of the post-Stalinist thaw of the 1960s.

     "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

    Born with an unshakeable belief that she was destined for greatness, Alma de Bretteville Spreckels (1881-1968) rose from poverty to become one of San Francisco's most powerful women. Alma's humble beginnings and scandalous lifestyle would alienate her from the cream of San Francisco society: she became an artists' model, befriended European royalty, married sugar magnate Adolph Spreckels, lived in the grandest mansion in San Francisco, and at age fifty-seven chartered a plane and eloped with a cowboy. But that same larger-than-life personality was a fruitful asset in the many pursuits that claimed her passions, the most notable of which still stands high on the Golden Gate headlands. Big Alma celebrates the woman who brought Rodin's works to America and built the Palace of the Legion of Honor to hold them.

    A history of Poland and its neighbours that covers the Silver Age, during which the Commonwealth was ruled by elective kings, a Frenchman and a Hungarian, then by the Swedish House of Vasa.

    Parlour games. Cocktails. Welcome to a glorious journey through the golden age of the country house party - and you are invited. Our host, celebrated historian Adrian Tinniswood, traces the evolution of this quintessentially British pastime from debauched royal tours to the flamboyant excess of the Bright Young Things. With cameos by the Jazz Age industrialist, the bibulous earl and the off-duty politician - whether in moated manor houses or ornate Palladian villas - Tinniswood gives a vivid insight into weekending etiquette and reveals the hidden lives of celebrity guests, from Nancy Astor to Winston Churchill, in all their drinking, feasting, gambling and fornicating. The result is a deliciously entertaining, star-studded, yet surprisingly moving portrait of a time when social conventions were being radically overhauled through the escapism of a generation haunted by war - and a uniquely fast-living period of English history. Praise for The Long Weekend:'Delicious, occasionally fantastical, revealing in ways that Downton Abbey never was. It is as if Tinniswood is at the biggest, wildest, most luxuriantly decadent party ever thrown, and he knows everyone.' Observer 'A deliciously jaunty and wonderfully knowledgeable book. Tinniswood displays a terrific insider's grasp of gossip . A meticulous, irresistible story.' Spectator 'Elegant, encyclopedic and entertaining . A confident and skilled historian who understands the mores of his era and wears his learning lightly . Deserves to be on every costume drama producer's bookshelf.' Times

    It contains 85 black-and-white press photographs from World War II which Brecht himself cut out of newspapers and magazines. They date from his exile in Sweden and Finland in 1940 and 1941, but were mainly collected during his exile in the USA, from July 1941 till the end of the war. To each picture, Brecht added a four-line poem - poignant, angry, personal or political, or a combination of these. This book therefore constitutes an intriguing record of World War II from the viewpoint of one of the 20th-century's greatest and most politically-engaged poets.

    The Devil and Dr. Barnes traces the near-mythical journey of a man who was born into poverty, amassed a fortune through the promotion of a popular medicine, and acquired the premier private collection of works by such masters as Renoir, Matisse, Cézanne, and Picasso. Ostentatiously turning his back on the art establishment, Barnes challenged the aesthetic sensibilities of an uninitiated, often resistant and scoffing, American audience. In particular, he championed Matisse, Soutine, and Modigliani when they were obscure or in difficult straits. Analyzing what he saw as the formal relationships underlying all art, linking the old and the new, Barnes applied these principles in a rigorous course of study offered at his Merion foundation. Barnes's own mordant words, culled from the copious printed record, animate the narrative throughout, as do accounts of his associations with notables of the era--Gertrude and Leo Stein, Bertrand Russell, and John Dewey among them--many of whom he alienated with his appetite for passionate, public feuds. In this rounded portrait, Albert Barnes emerges as a complex, flawed man, who--blessed with an astute eye for greatness--has left us an incomparable treasure, gathered in one place and unforgettable to all who have seen it.

    Describes events following Napoleon's return from Elba leading up to the Battle of Waterloo, and provides a detailed chronicle of the Waterloo campaign, with maps providing a visual presentation of troop movements.

    Leo would spend the next five years in a coke processing plant, shoveling coal, lugging bricks, mixing mortar, and battling the relentless calculus of hunger that governed the labor colony: one shovel load of coal is worth one gram of bread.In her new novel, Nobel laureate Herta Müller calls upon her unique combination of poetic intensity and dispassionate precision to conjure the distorted world of the labor camp in all its physical and moral absurdity. She has given Leo the language to express the inexpressible, as hunger sharpens his senses into an acuity that is both hallucinatory and profound. In scene after disorienting scene, the most ordinary objects accrue tender poignancy as they acquire new purpose—a gramophone box serves as a suitcase, a handkerchief becomes a talisman, an enormous piece of casing pipe functions as a lovers' trysting place. The heart is reduced to a pump, the breath mechanized to the rhythm of a swinging shovel, and coal, sand, and snow have a will of their own. Hunger becomes an insatiable angel who haunts the camp day and night, but also a bare-knuckled sparring partner, delivering blows that keep Leo feeling the rawest connection to life.Müller has distilled Leo's struggle into words of breathtaking intensity that take us on a journey far beyond the Gulag and into the depths of one man's soul.

    This collection presents fifty large-scale artworks from the American master's color field period (1949–1970) alongside essays by Rothko's son, Christopher Rothko, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art curator of painting and sculpture Janet Bishop. Featuring illuminating details about Rothko's life, influences, and legacy, and brimming with the emotional power and expressive color of his groundbreaking canvases, this essential volume brings the renowned artist's luminous work to light for both longtime Rothko fans and those discovering his work for the very first time. A textured case and large-scale tip-on on the front cover round out this sumptious package.

    He writes of his wartime experiences, and particularly of his period as Squadron Leader and Wing Commander and his involvement in the Battle of Britain.

    After angry Protestants tossed three representatives of the Holy Roman Empire out the window of the royal castle in Prague, world war spread from Bohemia with similar abandon and relentless persistence, destroying European powers from Spain to Sweden as they marched on the contested soil of Germany. Fanatics, speculators, and ordinary people found themselves trapped in a nightmarish world of famine, disease, and seemingly unstoppable destruction. The Thirty Years War was a turning point in the making of modern Europe and the modern world: out of it came the system of nation-states that remains fundamental to international law. C.V. Wedgwood's magisterial book is the only comprehensive account of the war in English, as well as a triumph of scholarship and literature. Includes maps and charts.

    It has also been, and continues to be, pivotal in the course of world events. A History of Eastern Europe offers a sweeping 1,000-year tour with a particular focus on the region's modern history. In 24 insightful lectures, you'll observe waves of migration and invasion, watch empires rise and fall, witness wars and their deadly consequences - and come away with comprehensive knowledge of one of the world's most fascinating places.In examining this region's remarkable diversity and contested borders, you'll better understand the ever-present tension between the connections between East and West and the areas of marked contrast. These disparities were clear as the world globalized and the US and Soviet superpowers jockeyed for spheres of influence - epitomized by the imposition of the Iron Curtain across Europe and the rise of the Berlin Wall. And yet, throughout the 20th century and into current times, the connectedness of Eastern Europe to the rest of the world continues to be demonstrated beyond question. This region has made itself felt across the globe through:The political and cultural reverberations of peace movements and armed conflictsThe crises of huge population migrations and the new expressions of cultural and economic exchange they sparkThe successes and struggles of NATO and the European Union And more Explore the grand sweep of this epic history, from a series of early invasions to the rise of empires to the collapse of communism and into the new challenges of the 21st century. Meet brilliant poets, writers, artists, and other cultural figures who made an impact on Eastern European history.

    He presents the ideological innovations and ethnic cleansings that abetted the spread of modern nationalism but also examines recent statesmanship that has allowed national interests to be channeled toward peace.“A work of profound scholarship and considerable importance.”—Timothy Garton Ash, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford“Timothy Snyder’s style is a welcome reminder that history writing can be—indeed, ought to be—a literary pursuit.”—Charles King, Times Literary Supplement“A brilliant and fascinating analysis of the subtleties, complexities, and paradoxes of the evolution of nations in Eastern Europe. It has major implications for all of us who want to understand the processes of state collapse and nation-building in the world.”—Samuel P. Huntington, Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies“Snyder’s ultimate query in this fresh and stimulating look at the path to nationhood is how the bitter experiences along the way, including the bitterest—ethnic cleansing—are to be overcome.”—Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs

    Why spend time wandering around a country that remains a sort of dead zone for many foreigners, surrounded as it is by a force field of historical, linguistic, climatic, and gastronomic barriers? Winder's book is propelled by a wish to reclaim the brilliant, chaotic, endlessly varied German civilization that the Nazis buried and ruined, and that, since 1945, so many Germans have worked to rebuild.Germania is a very funny book on serious topics — how we are misled by history, how we twist history, and how sometimes it is best to know no history at all. It is a book full of curiosities: odd food, castles, mad princes, fairy tales, and horse-mating videos. It is about the limits of language, the meaning of culture, and the pleasure of townscape.