Before long, the shogun surrendered to the emperor, a new constitution was adopted, and Japan emerged as a modern, industrialized state.Despite the length of his reign, little has been written about the strangely obscured figure of Meiji himself, the first emperor ever to meet a European. Most historians discuss the period that takes his name while barely mentioning the man, assuming that he had no real involvement in affairs of state. Even Japanese who believe Meiji to have been their nation's greatest ruler may have trouble recalling a single personal accomplishment that might account for such a glorious reputation. Renowned Japan scholar Donald Keene sifts the available evidence to present a rich portrait not only of Meiji but also of rapid and sometimes violent change during this pivotal period in Japan's history.In this vivid and engrossing biography, we move with the emperor through his early, traditional education; join in the formal processions that acquainted the young emperor with his country and its people; observe his behavior in court, his marriage, and his relationships with various consorts; and follow his maturation into a "Confucian" sovereign dedicated to simplicity, frugality, and hard work. Later, during Japan's wars with China and Russia, we witness Meiji's struggle to reconcile his personal commitment to peace and his nation's increasingly militarized experience of modernization. Emperor of Japan conveys in sparkling prose the complexity of the man and offers an unrivaled portrait of Japan in a period of unique interest.

    Names of Kings and major political/military persons have been updated and major typographical errors found with the previous Kindle edition have been corrected. Combined with copious illustrations, maps and images, the newly revised Dark Ages is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand a critical period in Western history that saw the transition from Roman Imperial rule to conquest-driven tribal rule and, ultimately, a flowering into the High Middle Ages. Oman provides one of the best historical examinations and explanations about the period widely known as the Dark Ages, when the end of total and complex Roman Imperial rule over Europe and the Mediterranean collapsed, taking the institutions that provided so much cultural sophistication and stability with it. Very much a work about how Europe, and the Western Tradition, survived after the Roman collapse. The Dark Ages has also been split into three books, mainly for ease of reading; the original book published in 1893 was a massive tome that covered the period from 476 CE to 918 CE. This first book in the new edition covers the period from 476 CE to 603 CE:ODOACER AND THEODORIC 476-493THEODORIC KING OF ITALY 493-526THE EMPERORS AT CONSTANTINOPLE 476-527CLOVIS I AND THE FRANKS IN GAUL 481-511JUSTINIAN AND HIS WARS 528-540JUSTINIAN 540-565 CETHE EARLIER FRANKISH KINGS 511-561THE VISIGOTHS IN SPAIN 531-603

    The Rosetta Stone, Troy, Nineveh's Assyrian Library, King Tut's Tomb, Machu Picchu, Pompeii, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Thera, Olduvai Gorge, and the Tomb of 10,000 Warriors--Hunt reveals the fascinating stories of these amazing discoveries and explains the ways in which they added to our knowledge of human history and permanently altered our worldview. Part travel guide to the wonders of the world and part primer on ancient world history, Ten Discoveries That Rewrote History captures the awe and excitement of finding a lost window into ancient civilization.

    Both have democratic polities, mixed-enterprise economies, individuated societies, pluralist cultures, and a deep concern for human rights and the rule of law. But all ofthese elements take different forms, because constellations of value are far apart. The dream of living free is America's Polaris; fairness and natural justice are New Zealand's Southern Cross.Fischer asks why these similar countries went different ways. Both were founded by English-speaking colonists, but at different times and with disparate purposes. They lived in the first and second British Empires, which operated in very different ways. Indians and Maori were important agents ofchange, but to different ends. On the American frontier and in New Zealand's Bush, material possibilities and moral choices were not the same. Fischer takes the same comparative approach to parallel processes of nation-building and immigration, women's rights and racial wrongs, reform causes andconservative responses, war-fighting and peace-making, and global engagement in our own time--with similar results.On another level, this book expands Fischer's past work on liberty and freedom. It is the first book to be published on the history of fairness. And it also poses new questions in the old tradition of history and moral philosophy. Is it possible to be both fair and free? In a vast array ofevidence, Fischer finds that the strengths of these great values are needed to correct their weaknesses. As many societies seek to become more open--never twice in the same way, an understanding of our differences is the only path to peace.

    You may not be able to put your finger on it, but you sense it instinctively.How can you not sense it? For the first time ever, both the majority of the younger and the older generations of America now believe that future generations will not be as prosperous as their parents’ generation was. And that’s only the economic pessimism. On the social and cultural fronts, how many of us can truly say that we are proud are what our society has degenerated to?Make no mistake; the America we once knew has indeed been murdered. How did we arrive at this point of perpetual debt, perpetual inflation, massive taxation, chronically high unemployment, disintegrating families, massive dependency on the state, perpetual war, and ever-worsening moral degeneracy, mass psychological depression, and cultural degradation?Who did it? Why did they do it? How did they do it? How was the ‘murder’ concealed from the American people?Through the use of 40 clear, concise and very easy-to-digest illustrated ‘blurbs’ (The 40 Wounds), Killing America: The 100 Year Murder will answer those questions for you. This is a mass-distribution booklet designed for ‘crash-course’ simplicity. Please share it with others.

    . . intellectual and religious history of late medieval and Reformation Europe.”—Christianity Today"A learned, humane, and expressive book."—Gerald Strauss, Renaissance Quarterly The seeds of the swift and sweeping religious movement that reshaped European thought in the 1500s were sown in the late Middle Ages. In this book, Steven Ozment traces the growth and dissemination of dissenting intellectual trends through three centuries to their explosive burgeoning in the Reformations—both Protestant and Catholic—of the sixteenth century. He elucidates with great clarity the complex philosophical and theological issues that inspired antagonistic schools, traditions, and movements from Aquinas to Calvin. This masterly synthesis of the intellectual and religious history of the period illuminates the impact of late medieval ideas on early modern society.

    In handsomely crafted prose, and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for narrative history, William Manchester leads us from a civilization tottering on the brink of collapse to the grandeur of its rebirth - the dense explosion of energy that spawned some of history's greatest poets, philosophers, painters, adventurers, and reformers, as well as some of its most spectacular villains - the Renaissance.

    Naturalist. Warrior. President. There are so many sides to Theodore Roosevelt that it is easy to overlook one of his most enduring contributions to American public life: the use of fame to fuel his political career.In this concisely written, enlightening book, presidential historian Lewis L. Gould goes beyond the bully pulpit stereotypes to reveal how Roosevelt used his celebrity to change American politics. Based on research gleaned from the personal papers of Roosevelt and his contemporaries, TheodoreRoosevelt recaptures its subject's bold activism and irrepressible, larger-than-life personality. Beginning with his privileged childhood in New York City, the narrative traces his election to the New York Assembly, where he quickly rose through the ranks of the Republican Party. It is here that hefirst applied his shrewd ability to keep himself in the spotlight--a skill that served him well as commander of a volunteer regiment (dubbed Roosevelt's Rough Riders) in the Spanish-American War. Gould shows how Roosevelt rode a wave of popular acclaim at the war's end, assuming the governorshipof New York and serving as president from 1901 to 1909. While covering his major accomplishments as chief executive, including his successes as a trust-buster, labor mediator, and conservationist, Gould explains how fame both sustained and limited Roosevelt when he ran for president in 1912 andopposed Woodrow Wilson's policies during World War I.Theodore Roosevelt delivers the most insightful look yet at a pioneer of political theater--a man whose vigorous idealism as a champion of democracy serves as a counterpoint to the cynicism of today's political landscape. The book will coincide with the 100th anniversary of Roosevelt's third partyrun for the Progressive or Bull Moose Party.

    Organized by topic and thoroughly cross-referenced, this comprehensive volume enables the reader to explore and understand every facet of the Middle Ages, an era of breathtaking artistic achievement and religious faith in a world where life was often coarse and cruel, cut short by war, famine, and disease. Framed by chapters that bracket the beginning and the end of this misunderstood period, The Medieval World Complete covers religion and the Church, nations and laws, daily life, art and architecture, scholarship and philosophy, and the world beyond Christendom. The book is completed by biographies of key personalities, from Charlemagne to Wycliffe, as well as timelines, maps, a glossary, a gazetteer, and a bibliography.

    She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, no one believed that the details of Gudrid’s story were true. Then, in 2001, a team of scientists discovered what may have been this pioneering woman’s last house, buried under a hay field in Iceland, just where the sagas suggested it could be. Joining scientists experimenting with cutting-edge technology and the latest archaeological techniques, and tracing Gudrid’s steps on land and in the sagas, Nancy Marie Brown reconstructs a life that spanned—and expanded—the bounds of the then-known world. She also sheds new light on the society that gave rise to a woman even more extraordinary than legend has painted her and illuminates the reasons for its collapse.

     From a polar bear who fished the Thames nightly for his dinner to elephants who drank only wine, the inhabitants of the southwest corner of the Tower of London were a strange and rowdy bunch. No less strange was the cast of characters that visited them: William Blake, Chaucer, and Samuel Pepys, to name a few. Daniel Hahn's fascinating history of the Tower of London's Royal Menagerie tells the story of the thousands of exotic creatures who found a home in one of the world's most forbidding and infamous fortresses. The Royal Menagerie began with a wedding gift: three leopards from King Henry III's new brother-in-law, Frederick the Holy Roman Emperor, in 1235. Soon after, a huge Norwegian polar bear joined them. Over the next six hundred years, the Tower played host to lions, ostriches, elephants, and other unusual animals that astonished London. Brimming with unforgettable stories (the lion who kept a spaniel as a pet; ostriches who were fed a steady diet of rusty nails; lions who, their keepers claimed, could tell whether a woman was a virgin) and beautiful historical illustrations, The Tower Menagerie provides an intriguing, lively survey of our changing attitudes toward animals, as well as a hugely entertaining journey through six centuries of British history.

    Exploring the family's lineage from the first Stuart king to the last, The Royal Stuarts is a panoramic history of the family that acted as a major player in the Scottish Wars of Independence, the Union of the Crowns, the English Civil War, the Restoration, and more.Drawing on the accounts of historians past and present, novels, and plays, this is the complete story of the Stuart family, documenting their path from the salt marshes of Brittany to the thrones of Scotland and England and eventually to exile. The Royal Stuarts brings to life figures like Mary, Queens of Scots, Charles I, and Bonnie Prince Charlie, uncovering a family of strong affections and fierce rivalries. Told with panache, this is the gripping true story of backstabbing, betrayal, and ambition gone awry.

    Shows how our concept of humankind has changed over time and argues our current understanding of what it means to be human has been shaken by new discoveries from science and philosophy.

    Hailed as a masterpiece when first published in French in 1939, and in English in 1970, this great work of synthesis brings before us the great people of the steppes, dominated by three mighty figures - Attila, Genghiz Khan, and Tamberlain - as they marched through ten centuries of history, from the borders of China to the frontiers of the West. Includes nineteen maps, a comprehensive index, notes, and bibliography.

    Kenneth Macksey reveals Guderian as a brilliant rebel in search of ideals, and a general whose personality, genius, and achievements transcended those of Rommel. As well as throwing light on the crucial campaigns in Poland, France, and Russia, this biography illuminates the fatal struggles within the German hierarchy, and examines why Guderian was so admired by some and so denigrated by others.