Throughout the French Revolution, women, inspired by a longing for liberty and equality, played a vital role in stoking the fervor and idealism of those years. In her compelling history of the Revolution, Lucy Moore paints a vivid portrait of six extraordinary women who risked everything for the chance to exercise their ambition and make their mark on history.At the heart of Paris's intellectual movement, Germaine de Staël was a figure like no other. Passionate, fiercely intelligent and as consumed by love affairs as she was by politics, she helped write the 1791 Constitution at the salon in which she entertained the great thinkers of the age. At the other end of the social scale, her working-class counterparts patrolled the streets of Paris with pistols in their belts. Théroigne de Méricourt was an unhappy courtesan when she fell in love with revolutionary ideals. Denied a political role because of her sex, she nevertheless campaigned tirelessly until a mob beating left her broken in both mind and body. Later came the glittering merveilleuses, whose glamour, beauty and propensity for revealing outfits propelled them to the top of post-revolutionary society. Exuberant, decadent Thérésia Tallien reportedly helped engineer Robespierre's downfall. In so doing, she and her fellow "sans-chemises" ushered in a new world that combined sexual license with the amorality of the new Republic.

    As the 1790s began, a fragile America teetered on the brink of oblivion, Russia towered as a vast imperial power, and France plunged into revolution. But in contrast to the way conventional histories tell it, none of these remarkable events occurred in isolation.Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian Jay Winik masterfully illuminates how their fates combined in one extraordinary moment to change the course of civilization. A sweeping, magisterial drama featuring the richest cast of characters ever to walk upon the world stage, including Washington, Jefferson, Louis XVI, Robespierre, and Catherine the Great, The Great Upheaval is a gripping, epic portrait of this tumultuous decade that will forever transform the way we see America's beginnings and our world

    But what was he like as a young man—the man before Versailles?   After the death of his prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin, twenty-two-year-old Louis steps into governing France. He’s still a young man, but one who, as king, willfully takes everything he can get—including his brother’s wife. As the love affair between Louis and Princess Henriette burns, it sets the kingdom on the road toward unmistakable scandal and conflict with the Vatican. Every woman wants him. He must face what he is willing to sacrifice for love.But there are other problems lurking outside the chateau of Fontainebleau: a boy in an iron mask has been seen in the woods, and the king’s finance minister, Nicolas Fouquet, has proven to be more powerful than Louis ever thought—a man who could make a great ally or become a dangerous foe . . .Meticulously researched and vividly brought to life by the gorgeous prose of Karleen Koen, Before Versailles dares to explore the forces that shaped an iconic king and determined the fate of an empire.

    The photographs never sleep of this four-month battle, fought from July to November 1917, the worst year of the war: blackened tree stumps rising out of a field of mud, corpses of men and horses drowned in shell holes, terrified soldiers huddled in trenches awaiting the whistle.The intervening century, the most violent in human history, has not disarmed these pictures of their power to shock. At the very least they ask us, on the 100th anniversary of the battle, to see and to try to understand what happened here. Yes, we commemorate the event. Yes, we adorn our breasts with poppies. But have we seen? Have we understood? Have we dared to reason why? What happened at Passchendaele was the expression of the 'wearing-down war', the war of pure attrition at its most spectacular and ferocious.Paul Ham's Passchendaele: Requiem for Doomed Youth shows how ordinary men on both sides endured this constant state of siege, with a very real awareness that they were being gradually, deliberately, wiped out. Yet the men never broke: they went over the top, when ordered, again and again and again. And if they fell dead or wounded, they were casualties in the 'normal wastage', as the commanders described them, of attritional war. Only the soldier's friends at the front knew him as a man, with thoughts and feelings. His family back home knew him as a son, husband or brother, before he had enlisted. By the end of 1917 he was a different creature: his experiences on the Western Front were simply beyond their powers of comprehension.The book tells the story of ordinary men in the grip of a political and military power struggle that determined their fate and has foreshadowed the destiny of the world for a century. Passchendaele lays down a powerful challenge to the idea of war as an inevitable expression of the human will, and examines the culpability of governments and military commanders in a catastrophe that destroyed the best part of a generation.

    Here, Sunday Times bestselling author Charles Spencer tells the real story behind the legend to show how one cataclysmic shipwreck changed England’s course.In 1120, the White Ship was known as the fastest ship afloat. When it sank sailing from Normandy to England it was carrying aboard the only legitimate heir to King Henry I, William of Ætheling. The raucous, arrogant young prince had made a party of the voyage, carousing with his companions and pushing wine into the eager hands of the crew. It was the middle of the night when the drunken helmsman rammed the ship into rocks.The next day only one of the three hundred who had boarded the ship was alive to describe the horrors of the slow shipwreck. William, the face of England’s future had drowned along with scores of the social elite. The royal line severed and with no obvious heir to the crown, a civil war of untold violence erupted. Known fittingly as ‘The Anarchy’, this game of thrones saw families turned in on each other, with English barons, rebellious Welsh leaders and Scottish invaders all playing a part in the bloody, desperate scrum for power.One incredible shipwreck and two decades of violent uncertainty; England’s course had changed forever.

    But no one has flown from one country to another. John Jeffries, an Englishman, and his pilot, Jean-Pierre Blanchard, a Frenchman, want to be the first. On January 7, 1785, they set out to cross the English Channel to France in a balloon. All seemed to be going fine, until Jeffries decides the balloon looks too fat and adjusts the air valve—how hard could it be? Too bad he drops the wrench over the side of the aerial car. With no way to adjust the valve, the balloon begins to sink. Jeffries and Blanchard throw as much as they can overboard—until there is nothing left, not even their clothes. Luckily, they come up with a clever (and surprising) solution that saves the day. A VOYAGE IN THE CLOUDS is a journey that will keep kids laughing the whole way.A Margaret Ferguson Book

    Jon Snow is perhaps the most highly regarded newsman of our time; his qualities as a journalist and as a human being – his passion, warmth, intelligence, frankness and humour – are widely recognised and evident for all to see most nights on Channel 4 News and now in the pages of his first book.His vivid personal chronicle is filled with anecdotes and pithy observations, and delightfully records his life and times since becoming a journalist in the early 1970s. He reported widely on Cold War conflicts in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Angola and Central America before becoming a resident correspondent in Washington D.C. in the 1980s, and he has met and interviewed most of the world’s leaders.Drawing lessons from these experiences, he has pertinent things to say about how the increasing world disorder came about following the fall of the Berlin Wall; how the West’s constant search for an enemy has helped unhinge the world; and how and why the media have, in general, been less than helpful in drawing attention to key political and global developments.

    Spoiled by the novels of Rousseau, she refuses to be married unless it is for passion. Yet the love she finds with a young English poet will test Annette in unexpected ways, bringing great joy and danger in a time of terror and death.Told in sparking prose, Annette Vallon captures the courage and fearlessness of a woman whose dramatic story illuminates a turbulent and fascinating era.

    In one of the first recognized mass murderers, he terrorized some of London’s poorest and most vulnerable residents and brutally killed a series of women before seeming to disappear. Police investigative practices were in their infancy at the time, and without sophisticated tools, London’s forces of order were unable to catch the criminal. More than 100 years later, his true identity is still unknown, and the hunt for Jack the Ripper has consumed many an armchair sleuth. By reading this book, you, too, will be able to take part in a now-historic search for a murderer who has never been brought to justice. Step back in time to 1888 and try to discover, if you can, the man who was Jack the Ripper. Scroll to the top of the page and click Add To Cart to read more about this extraordinary chapter of history

    Her parents were taken from her at a young age, then her uncle sold her into prostitution; it was enough for many years just to cope and survive. One day, fate places a kind gentlemanin her path, and she begins to discover the city outside the brotheland the world beyond China's borders. As a larger canvas of life emerges, Pan realizes that she has something of value to say -- and a talent through which she can express herself. From Shanghai to Paris, Pan is challenged by the harsh realities in politics, art, and love, and must rely on her own strength to develop her talent. In so doing, she takes a relatively ordinary life and makes it extraordinary.A work of fiction -- but based on the life and work of a real artist -- The Painter from Shanghai transports readers to early-20th-century China, a culture marked by oppression. Epstein has proven herself a shining talent in this first novel, tackling such weighty questions as: How does a talented artist blossom, even under repressive conditions? What is art, and what is love? What makes a life well lived? The answers form a mesmerizing portrait of one young woman's journey to find herself and to nourish her creative talents despite appreciable odds.(Summer 2008 Selection)

    In an age when women were rarely educated, Heloise was his most gifted young student. Their private tutoring sessions inevitably turned to passion, and their moments apart were spent writing love letters. Astoundingly, a few years ago a young scholar identified 113 new love letters between the pair which, combined with the latest scholarship, present us with the richest telling yet of the couple's clandestine passion - a story that is erotic, poignant, and at times even funny.

    Some - including the Duke of Wellington, Lord Kitchener and Bernard Montgomery - are names etched in the national mythology. Others are unsung heroes and shadowy presences whose achievements or failures may have had consequences quite different to those they had intended.All ten of these generals revealed either a brilliant ability or a fatal flaw. Success or failure depended largely on their ability to work within Britain's Parliamentary democracy - and against tyrants, despots and emperors who were often free to act alone.Mark Urban, the acclaimed author of Rifles and Fusiliers, is now one of our foremost experts on military history.'One of the most intelligent books on the British Army I have ever read.' Allan Mallinson

    Conservative then Liberal then Conservative again, his political instincts won him a sustained career at the summit of British government, while his resolve and politics of personality made him broadly regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century.With his early radicalism, bold decisions regarding the Gold Standard and Iron curtain analysis, Churchill was, for many, a highly controversial figure. For others, he was Britain’s finest Prime Minister. From his career as a young army officer – serving in British India, The Sudan, and the Second Boer War, in which he won fame as a war correspondent – to his later pursuits as a historian, a writer, and an artist, ‘Churchill: History in an Hour’ is the perfect guide to the colorful, long and varied life of a historic titan.Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour…

    In the various studies of the six wives of Henry VIII she receives much less attention than Katherine of Aragon or Anne Boleyn. Her main achievement, in the famous rhyme about Henry's six wives, is that she 'survived'. Yet the real Katherine Parr was attractive, passionate (she had a mighty temper when aroused) ambitious and highly intelligent. She was thirty years old (younger than Anne Boleyn had been) when she married the king. Twice widowed, held hostage by the northern rebels during the great uprising of 1536-37 known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, her life had been dramatic even before she became queen. It would remain so after Henry's death, when she hastily and secretly married her old flame, the rakish Sir Thomas Seymour. Katherine died shortly after giving birth to her only child in September 1548, her brief happiness undermined by the very public flirtation of her husband and step-daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Despite the vivid interest of her life, this is the first full-scale, accessible biography of this fascinating woman who was, in reality, one of the most influential and active queen consorts in English history.

    Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association.