It premiered 37 years ago, in 1973, and, after 31 series it finally came to an end last year – even though all its original protagonists – Compo, Foggy, even Nora Batty – are now dead. Remarkably, for a series of such longevity and international appeal, it is all about elderly people, has little action or plot, and is set and filmed in and around the small Yorkshire town of Holmfirth. Now, Andrew Vine, the deputy editor of Yorkshire’s daily newspaper, has written the definitive history of this television phenomenon. It covers the show’s inauspicious beginnings, with low ratings, its endless reinvention as participants like Bill Owen, Michael Bates, Brian Wilde and Kathy Staff retired or died, the appearance of a string of guest stars from John Cleese and Norman Wisdom to Thora Hird and Russ Abbott (both of whom soon found themselves fixtures in the cast), and the ingenious plot contrivances as the protagonists became too old and frail to attempt any of the slapstick stunts with runaway prams – indeed any outdoor action. Holmfirth is now a year-round tourist attraction, and endless repeats and new DVD box sets will ensure a readership for this book for years to come.

    Socrates was undeniably one of the greatest thinkers of all time, yet he wrote nothing. Throughout his life, and indeed until his very last moment alive, Socrates fully embodied his philosophy in thought and deed. It is through the story of his life that we can fully grasp his powerful actions and ideas.In his highly acclaimed style, historian Paul Johnson masterfully disentangles centuries of scarce sources to offer a riveting account of a homely but charismatic middle-class man living in Athens in the fifth century b.c., and how what this man thought still shapes the way we decide how to act, and how we fathom the notion of body and soul. Johnson provides a compelling picture of the city and people Socrates reciprocally delighted in, as well as many enlightening and intimate analyses of specific aspects of his personality. Enchantingly portraying "the sheer power of Socrates's mind, and its unique combination of steel, subtlety, and frivolity," Paul Johnson captures the vast and intriguing life of a man who did nothing less than supply the basic apparatus of the human mind.

    It remains the definitive text on the nation. This new edition has been thoroughly revised, containing new research, and an up-to-date preface, index and dateline. The authors examine the major political, economic, social and cultural forces which have shaped the history of the Indian subcontinent in this survey. This classic text is an authoritative detailed account which emphasises and analyses the stuctural pattern of Indian history.

    Egypt is stunningly beautiful with a pleasant climate year-round, and if that alone isn't a big enough draw for the time-traveler, the fruits of Egyptian civilization are plentiful and worthy of contemplation. Pyramids and temples to the gods abound, and colossal statues of Egypt's divine rulers are seemingly everywhere. The Egyptians, however, are not particularly fond of foreigners, and just getting to Egypt can be arduous. Here is the inside scoop on how to enter and travel through Egypt, conform to its customs and expectations, and appreciate its often mysterious culture. You'll travel the Nile from north to south, stopping at such intriguing places as Memphis, Akhetaten, Abydos, and Thebes, where Egypt's grand past and present unfold before you. Egypt has long been a subject of broad popular interest, and this book provides an enjoyable glimpse of the ancient empire and its industrious people. Advice for the traveler in ancient Egypt: Foreigners might be bewildered by animal-headed deities and what appear to be numerous contradictions in Egyptian theology. Not to worry: there's a system behind it. Don't bring up the topic of the renegade pharaoh, Akhenaten, among new acquaintances. Many wish he hadn't existed. Should you need to visit an Egyptian physician, there's agood chance he'll prescribe a purge of one sort or another, accompanied by a magic spell.

    The book reveals the facts about his suspended prison sentence, his dispute with the group over unpaid royalties and his retiring from the music industry, and his rumoured heroin addiction.Written with the full co-operation of Grant's family and friends to give a unique access into the most fabled and feared man in the music business.

    It starts from an introduction to archaeology to basics of Indian History. Overall, the book is to introduce Indian history and how its studied along with explaining its importance in present world. Since the book is for teens and is an introductory literature, its full of interesting graphics and activities appropriate for target audience - 6th standard kids. This book is freely available at http://www.ncert.nic.in/ncerts/textbo... for personal use only.

    He examines the power of the arguments embedded in these speeches to inspire people to achieve great things, or do great harm. Abbott draws upon his political expertise to explain how our current understanding of the world is rooted in pivotal moments of history. These moments are captured in the words of a range of influential speakers including: Emmeline Pankhurst, Martin Luther King, Jr, Enoch Powell, Napoleon Beazley, Kevin Rudd, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden, Margaret Beckett, Winston Churchill, Salvador Allende, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Tim Collins, Mohandas Gandhi, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Robin Cook and Barack Obama. The speeches in this book are arranged thematically, linked by concepts such as 'might is right', 'with us or against us' and 'give peace a chance'. Each transcript is accompanied by an insightful commentary that analyses how the words relate to our modern society. Fresh and relevant, this is a book that will make you stop in your tracks and think about what is really happening in the world today.

    And yet, for twenty-five centuries, he has remained an enigma: a man who left no written legacy and about whom everything we know is hearsay, gleaned from the writings of Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes. Now Bettany Hughes gives us an unprecedented, brilliantly vivid portrait of Socrates and of his homeland, Athens in its Golden Age.His life spanned “seventy of the busiest, most wonderful and tragic years in Athenian history.” It was a city devastated by war, but, at the same time, transformed by the burgeoning process of democracy, and Hughes re-creates this fifth-century B.C. city, drawing on the latest sources—archaeological, topographical and textual—to illuminate the streets where Socrates walked, to place him there and to show us the world as he experienced it. She takes us through the great, teeming Agora—the massive marketplace, the heart of ancient Athens—where Socrates engaged in philosophical dialogue and where he would be condemned to death. We visit the battlefields where he fought, the red-light district and gymnasia he frequented and the religious festivals he attended. We meet the men and the few women—including his wife, Xanthippe, and his “inspiration” and confidante, Aspasia—who were central to his life. We travel to where he was born and where he died. And we come to understand the profound influences of time and place in the evolution of his eternally provocative philosophy.Deeply informed and vibrantly written, combining historical inquiry and storytelling élan, The Hemlock Cup gives us the most substantial, fascinating, humane depiction we have ever had of one of the most influential thinkers of all time.

    Athens had entered upon her brief and magnificent flowering of genius which so molded the world of mind and of spirit that our mind and spirit today are different... What was then produced of art and of thought has never been surpasses and very rarely equalled, and the stamp of it is upon all the art and all the thought of the Western world."A perennial favorite in many different editions, Edith Hamilton's best-selling The Greek Way captures the spirit and achievements of Greece in the fifth century B.C. A retired headmistress when she began her writing career in the 1930s, Hamilton immediately demonstrated a remarkable ability to bring the world of ancient Greece to life, introducing that world to the twentieth century. The New York Times called The Greek Way a "book of both cultural and critical importance."

    Often dismissed as a social climber who faded into the woodwork after she divorced Jackie's father-the dashing, disreputable "Black Jack" Bouvier-and married the rich Hugh D. Auchincloss, Janet not only played a pivotal part in Jackie's own wedding to JFK, but often served as a stand-in for Jackie during the White House years, and helped her cope with John and Caroline after the assassination.The only book to explore this fascinating mother-daughter relationship, Janet & Jackie is filled with stories that shed new light on the personal life of an American icon.

    

    It immediately became very popular and this first handhistory of the Buccaneers of America was soon translated into theprincipal European languages. The first English edition was printed in1684.Of the author, John Esquemeling, very little is known although it isgenerally conceded that he was in all probability a Fleming orHollander, a quite natural supposition as his first works were writtenin the Dutch language. He came to the island of Tortuga, theheadquarters of the Buccaneers, in 1666 in the employ of the French WestIndia Company. Several years later this same company, owing tounsuccessful business arrangements, recalled their representatives toFrance and gave their officers orders to sell the company's land and allits servants. Esquemeling then a servant of the company was sold to astern master by whom he was treated with great cruelty. Owing to hardwork, poor food and exposure he became dangerously ill, and his masterseeing his weak condition and fearing to lose the money Esquemeling hadcost him resold him to a surgeon. This new master treated him kindly sothat Esquemeling's health was speedily restored, and after one year'sservice he was set at liberty upon a promise to pay his benefactor, thesurgeon, 100 pieces of eight at such a time as he found himself infunds.Once more a free man he determined to join the pirates and was receivedinto their society and remained with them until 1672. Esquemeling servedthe Buccaneers in the capacity of barber-surgeon, and was present at alltheir exploits. Little did he suspect that his first hand observationswould some day be cherished as the only authentic and true history ofthe Buccaneers and Marooners of the Spanish Main.From time to time new editions of this work have been published, but inmany cases much new material, not always authentic, has been added andthe result has been to mar the original narrative as set forth byEsquemeling. In arranging this edition, the original English text onlyhas been used, and but few changes made by cutting out the long andtedious description of plant and animal life of the West Indies of whichEsquemeling had only a smattering of truth. But, the history of CaptainMorgan and his fellow buccaneers is here printed almost identical withthe original English translation, and we believe it is the first timethis history has been published in a suitable form for the juvenilereader with no loss of interest to the adult.The world wide attention at this time in the Isthmus of Panama and thegreat canal connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean lends to thisnarrative an additional stimulus. Here are set forth the deeds of daringof the wild freebooters in crossing the isthmus to attack the cities,Puerto Bellow and Panama. The sacking and burning of these placesaccompanied by pillage, fire, and treasure seeking both on land and onsea form exciting reading. _The Buccaneers and Marooners of America_well deserves a place on the book shelf with those old world-widefavorites _Robinson Crusoe_ and the _Swiss Family Robinson_.

    When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece's Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancient tablets, Europe's earliest written records. For half a century, the meaning of the inscriptions, and even the language in which they were written, would remain a mystery. Award-winning New York Times journalist Margalit Fox's riveting real-life intellectual detective story travels from the Bronze Age Aegean--the era of Odysseus, Agamemnon, and Helen--to the turn of the 20th century and the work of charismatic English archeologist Arthur Evans, to the colorful personal stories of the decipherers. These include Michael Ventris, the brilliant amateur who deciphered the script but met with a sudden, mysterious death that may have been a direct consequence of the decipherment; and Alice Kober, the unsung heroine of the story whose painstaking work allowed Ventris to crack the code.

    World-class interpretations exist of its Classical and subsequent history, but there has been remarkably little holistic exploration of how its societies, culture and economies first came into being, despitethe fact that almost all the fundamental developments originated well before 500 BC. This book is the first full, interpretive synthesis for a generation on the rise of the Mediterranean world from its beginning, before the emergence of our own species, up to the threshold of Classical times, bywhich time the Middle Sea was already in effect made.Thanks to unrivalled depth and breadth of exploration, Mediterranean archaeology is one of the world's richest sources for the reconstruction of ancient societies. This book is the first to draw in equal measure on ideas and information from the European, western Asian and African flanks, as well asthe islands at the Mediterranean's heart, to achieve a truly innovative focus on the varied trajectories and interactions that created this maritime world.The Mediterranean combines unusual conditions in a strictly unique fashion that goes a long way towards explaining its precocious development: it is the world's largest inland sea, easily the largest of the five challenging, opportunity-rich mediterraneoid environments on the planet, and adjacentto the riverine cores of two of the earliest civilizations, in Mesopotamia and Egypt. No wonder its societies proved exceptional.Extensively illustrated and ranging across disciplines, subject matter and chronology from early humans and the origins of farming and metallurgy to the rise of civilizations--Egyptian, Levantine, Hispanic, Minoan, Mycenaean, Phoenician, Etruscan, early Greek--the book is a masterpiece ofarchaeological and historical writing.

    Yet those meager remains showed such power and genius that they captured the imagination of readers through the ages. But within the last century, dozens of new pieces of her poetry have been found written on crumbling papyrus or carved on broken pottery buried in the sands of Egypt. As recently as 2014, yet another discovery of a missing poem created a media stir around the world.The poems of Sappho reveal a remarkable woman who lived on the Greek island of Lesbos during the vibrant age of the birth of western science, art, and philosophy. Sappho was the daughter of an aristocratic family, a wife, a devoted mother, a lover of women, and one of the greatest writers of her own or any age. Nonetheless, although most people have heard of Sappho, the story of her lost poems and the lives of the ancient women they celebrate has never been told for a general audience.Searching for Sappho is the exciting tale of the rediscovery of Sappho’s poetry and of the woman and world they reveal.