Anglo-Saxons: A Captivating Guide to the People Who Inhabited Great Britain from the Early Middle Ages to the Norman Conquest of England


Captivating History - 2019
     Free History BONUS Inside! There was a time before England was united. This was a time before William the Bastard decided to prove to his contemporaries that his bastard moniker would be erased with a swift conquest of the biggest island northwest of Europe. A time before the Battle of Hastings and the year 1066. A time when many petty kingdoms ruled, conquered, and were liberated, time and time again, by a specific people group. A people group that is, in fact, a blend of many and that authors of later dates would collectively call the Anglo-Saxons. With this book, we want to let our readers know how vibrant and lively (as well as deadly) life in Britain was during the perhaps wrongly-titled “Dark Ages.” With the end of the Roman Empire, the local Britons were left to their devices, and it would be several people groups from a peninsula in Central Europe that would come to dominate the island, making sure their presence was known through a series of kingdoms, battles, clashes, victories, and defeats. But the Anglo-Saxons have a lot more to offer us history buffs. We can learn about their day-to-day life: how they dressed, what they ate and drank, how they waged war or had fun, how they buried their dead, and how they worshiped their gods. We can also learn about their art, their amazing metal and clay pieces, stunning bits of tapestries, and dozens of well-illuminated manuscripts. And if we lack any information on what they thought of the world around them, we can be happy that they were willing to tell us that themselves, all through hundreds of written texts of both religious and secular nature. The Anglo-Saxons were, indeed, an odd group of people to take control of Britain. But they didn’t do it all at once, and just like any other people in history, they had a period of adjustment, growth, reconstruction, and eventual rise to prominence. In Anglo-Saxons: A Captivating Guide to the People Who Inhabited Great Britain from the Early Middle Ages to the Norman Conquest of England, you will discover topics such as Anglo-Saxons Arrive Early Anglo-Saxons: Origins and Pre-Settlement History The Culture of Anglo-Saxons: Religion, Customs, Social Hierarchy, Early Christianity Everyday Life of Anglo-Saxon England: Jobs and Division of Labor, Food and Drink, Clothes, Architecture, Travel, Wars, Gender and Age Norms, Art, Written Works Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms Anglo-Saxon Legacy And much, much more! So if you want to learn more about the history of the Anglo-Saxons, scroll up and click the "add to cart" button!

Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: A Cultural History, Vol. I)


David Hackett Fischer - 1989
    It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins.From 1629 to 1775, North America was settled by four great waves of English-speaking immigrants. The first was an exodus of Puritans from the east of England to Massachusetts (1629-1640). The second was the movement of a Royalist elite and indentured servants from the south of England to Virginia (ca. 1649-75). The third was the "Friends' migration,"--the Quakers--from the North Midlands and Wales to the Delaware Valley (ca. 1675-1725). The fourth was a great flight from the borderlands of North Britain and northern Ireland to the American backcountry (ca. 1717-75).These four groups differed in many ways--in religion, rank, generation and place of origin. They brought to America different folkways which became the basis of regional cultures in the United States. They spoke distinctive English dialects and built their houses in diverse ways. They had different ideas of family, marriage and gender; different practices of child-naming and child-raising; different attitudes toward sex, age and death; different rituals of worship and magic; different forms of work and play; different customs of food and dress; different traditions of education and literacy; different modes of settlement and association. They also had profoundly different ideas of comity, order, power and freedom which derived from British folk-traditions. Albion's Seed describes those differences in detail, and discusses the continuing importance of their transference to America.Today most people in the United States (more than 80 percent) have no British ancestors at all. These many other groups, even while preserving their own ethnic cultures, have also assimilated regional folkways which were transplanted from Britain to America. In that sense, nearly all Americans today are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnic origins may be; but they are so in their different regional ways. The concluding section of Albion's Seed explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still control attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.Albion's Seed also argues that the four British folkways created an expansive cultural pluralism that has proved to the more libertarian than any single culture alone could be. Together they became the determinants of a voluntary society in the United States.

If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home


Lucy Worsley - 2011
    Lucy Worsley takes us through the bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen, covering the architectural history of each room, but concentrating on what people actually did in bed, in the bath, at the table, and at the stove.

Adventures on the High Teas: In Search of Middle England


Stuart Maconie - 2009
    Just where and what is “Middle England?” Is Slough really as bad as Ricky Gervais makes out? From Shakespeare to Midsomer Murders, Stuart Maconie goes in search of the truth, with plenty of stop-offs for tea and pastries.

Transit Maps of the World


Mark Ovenden - 2003
    Using glorious, colorful graphics, Mark Ovenden traces the history of mass transit-including rare and historic maps, diagrams, and photographs, some available for the first time since their original publication. Transit Maps is the graphic designer's new bible, the transport enthusiast's dream collection, and a coffee-table essential for everyone who's ever traveled in a city.

Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles


Charles Fleming - 2010
    That’s where William Faulkner was living when he wrote the screenplay for To Have and Have Not; that house was designed by Neutra; over there is a Schindler; that’s where Woody Guthrie lived, where Anais Nin died, and where Thelma Todd was murdered . . .Despite the fact that one of these staircases starred in an Oscar-winning short film—Laurel and Hardy’s The Music Box, from 1932—these civic treasures have been virtually unknown to most of the city’s residents and visitors. Now, Secret Stairs puts these hidden stairways back on the map, while introducing urban hikers to exciting new “trails” all around the city of Los Angeles.

Between the Stops: The View of My Life from the Top of the Number 12 Bus


Sandi Toksvig - 2019
    It's about a bus trip really, because it's my view from the Number 12 bus (mostly top deck, the seat at the front on the right), a double-decker that plies its way from Dulwich, in South East London, where I was living, to where I sometimes work - at the BBC, in the heart of the capital. It's not a sensible way to write a memoir at all, probably, but it's the way things pop into your head as you travel, so it's my way'.From London facts including where to find the blue plaque for Una Marson, 'The first black woman programme maker at the BBC', to discovering the best Spanish coffee under Southwark's railway arches; from a brief history of lady gangsters at Elephant and Castle to memories of climbing Mount Sinai and, at the request of a fellow traveller, reading aloud the Ten Commandments; from the story behind Pissarro's painting of Dulwich Station to performing in Footlights with Emma Thompson; from painful memoires of being sent to Coventry while at a British boarding school to thinking about how Wombells Travelling Circus of 1864 haunts Peckham Rye;from anecdotes about meeting Prince Charles, Monica Lewinsky and Grayson Perry to Bake-Off antics; from stories of a real and lasting friendship with John McCarthy to the importance of family and the daunting navigation of the Zambezi River in her father's canoe, this Sandi Toksvig-style memoir is, as one would expect and hope, packed full of surprises. A funny and moving trip through memories, musings and the many delights on the Number 12 route, Between the Stops is also an inspiration to us all to get off our phones, look up and to talk to each other because as Sandi says: 'some of the greatest trips lie on our own doorstep'.

The Rough Guide to London


Rob Humphreys - 1995
    A full-colour section introduces many of London's highlights with expert coverage of all the sights, from Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament to lively Covent Garden and the refurbished South Bank. The guide includes comprehensive information on every corner of the city from swanky Kensington and Chelsea to trendy Clerkenwell and Hoxton and right out to Windsor. You'll find detailed accounts of all the palaces, museums and galleries, big and small, and why they're worth (or not worth) visiting as well as two new colour sections on the Thames and London for free. There are up-to-date reviews of many of the capital's hotels and restaurants and specialist sections on nightlife, the gay and lesbian scene and classical arts, all written by London-based experts. From Oxford Street to Camden Market, the guide comes complete with detailed information of the capitals best shopping-spots, plus maps and plans for every area.Make the most of your time with The Rough Guide to London

The Flaneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris


Edmund White - 2001
    These beautifully produced, pocket-sized books will provide exactly what is missing in ordinary travel guides: insights and imagination that lead the reader into those parts of a city no other guide can reach.A flaneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through a city without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the history of the place and in covert search of adventure, esthetic or erotic. Edmund White, who lived in Paris for sixteen years, wanders through the streets and avenues and along the quays, taking us into parts of Paris virtually unknown to visitors and indeed to many Parisians. Entering the Marais evokes the history of Jews in France, just as a visit to the Haynes Grill recalls the presence-festive, troubled-of black Americans in Paris for a century and a half. Gays, Decadents, even Royalists past and present are all subjected to the flaneur's scrutiny. Edmund White's The Flaneur is opinionated, personal, subjective. As he conducts us through the bookshops and boutiques, past the monuments and palaces, filling us in on the gossip and background of each site, he allows us to see through the blank walls and past the proud edifices and to glimpse the inner, human drama. Along the way he recounts everything from the latest debates among French law-makers to the juicy details of Colette's life in the Palais Royal, even summoning up the hothouse atmosphere of Gustave Moreau's atelier.

A Fine Romance: Falling in Love with the English Countryside


Susan Branch - 2013
    Join Susan as she recounts her lighthearted ramble of discovery through the historical homes and gardens of art and literary heroes, along ancient footpaths, through wildflower meadows and fields of lambs, into tea rooms, pubs and antique stores. This lovely hard-cover book includes hundreds of photographs and a red ribbon sewn-in book mark. A Fine Romance is a work of art, part love story, part travel guide and all dream come true.

Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round the Shipping Forecast


Charlie Connelly - 2004
    Since its first broadcast in the 1920s it has inspired poems, songs and novels in addition to its intended objective of warning generations of seafarers of impending storms and gales. Sitting at home listening to the shipping forecast can be a cosily reassuring experience. There's no danger of a westerly gale eight, veering southwesterly increasing nine later (visibility poor) gusting through your average suburban living room, blowing the Sunday papers all over the place and startling the cat. Yet familiar though the sea areas are by name, few people give much thought to where they are or what they contain. In ATTENTION ALL SHIPPING Charlie Connelly wittily explores the places behind the voice, those mysterious regions whose names seem often to bear no relation to conventional geography. Armchair travel will never be the same again.

Corsets and Codpieces: A History of Outrageous Fashion, from Roman Times to the Modern Era


Karen Bowman - 2016
    Corsets and Codpieces is a fascination read for history buffs and fashionistas alike.

In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon's Wars, 1793–1815


Jenny Uglow - 2014
    Illustrated by the satires of Gillray and Rowlandson and the paintings of Turner and Constable, and combining the familiar voices of Austen, Wordsworth, Scott, and Byron with others lost in the crowd, In These Times delves into the archives to tell the moving story of how people lived and loved and sang and wrote, struggling through hard times and opening new horizons that would change their country for a century.

The Kingdom by the Sea


Paul Theroux - 1983
    The result is a candid, funny, perceptive, and opinionated travelogue of his journey and his findings.

Secret Seattle


Susanna Ryan - 2021
    In Secret Seattle, Ryan explores the weird and wonderful hidden history behind some of the city's most overlooked places, architecture, and infrastructure, from coal chutes in Capitol Hill, to the last remainder of Seattle's original Chinatown in Pioneer Square, to the best places in town to find century-old sidewalks. Discover pocket parks, beautiful boulevards, and great public gardens while learning offbeat facts that will make you see the Emerald City in a whole new way. Perfect for both the local history buff who never leaves a favorite armchair to a walking enthusiast looking for offbeat and off-the-beaten-path scavenger hunts.