John Snow. It's the summer of 1854, and London is just emerging as one of the first modern cities in the world. But lacking the infrastructure—garbage removal, clean water, sewers—necessary to support its rapidly expanding population, the city has become the perfect breeding ground for a terrifying disease no one knows how to cure. As the cholera outbreak takes hold, a physician and a local curate are spurred to action—and ultimately solve the most pressing medical riddle of their time. In a triumph of multidisciplinary thinking, Johnson illuminates the intertwined histories and inter-connectedness of the spread of disease, contagion theory, the rise of cities, and the nature of scientific inquiry, offering both a riveting history and a powerful explanation of how it has shaped the world we live in.

    

    Where do she and her guests spend Christmas and how do they get there? The answers to these and many other questions are given in this intriguing and riveting account of what really goes on at a Royal Christmas, written by one of Britain’s leading Royal writers, and based on facts from impeccable sources at Buckingham Palace.Brian Hoey is acknowledged to be one of the most important Royal authors in the world, having written 28 books about the Royal Family. He conducted the first ever television interview with the Queen’s only daughter, Prince Anne, the Princess Royal, and also wrote her only official biography. He was a commentator at the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981, and again, at the funeral of Diana in 1997, and his written work has appeared in countries throughout the world, particularly the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Hoey has been a guest on many major radio and television shows in Britain and America, including the Today Show, Good Morning America and in Britain, This Morning.

    His book is both a biography and a history of contemporary boxing, a fascinating tale of greed, violence, sex, and dollars."-- San Francisco Chronicle Mike Tyson is boxing's most beloved bad boy. With a history of street-gang violence, juvenile prison, sexual scandal, marital strife, courtroom battles, and imprisonment for rape, he has become one of the most publicized athletes in history. At age 23 he was already considered among the greatest prizefighters of all time, and, his career is far from over. Relying on in-depth research and interviews with those who have known Tyson at every stage of his life, Bad Intentions portrays the shy child who became a vicious street thug, discovered boxing in juvenile prison, and was brought to the attention of the legendary Cus D'Amato to be shaped to be one thing only--heavyweight champion of the world. Here is Tyson's fight-by-fight path to that goal, the millions of dollars made and fought over, the sex and violence of his personal life, and his eventual defeats both in the ring and in court. Bad Intentions is an essential read for all who would understand the ins and outs of the most controversial sport in America.

    Once a maritime superpower and ruler of half the world, Britain now occupies an isolated position as an economically fragile island often at odds with her European neighbors. Lawrence James has written a comprehensive, perceptive and insighful history of the British Empire. Spanning the years from 1600 to the present day, this critically acclaimed book combines detailed scholarship with readable popular history.

    Arnold brings the spirit of Catherine Dickens to life in the form of Dorothea “Dodo” Gibson–a woman who is doomed to live in the shadow of her husband, Alfred, the most celebrated author in the Victorian world. The story opens on the day of Alfred’s funeral. Dorothea is not among the throngs in attendance when The One and Only is laid to rest. Her mourning must take place within the walls of her modest apartment, a parting gift from Alfred as he ushered her out of their shared home and his life more than a decade earlier. Even her own children, save her outspoken daughter Kitty, are not there to offer her comfort–they were poisoned against her when Alfred publicly declared her an unfit wife and mother. Though she refuses to don the proper mourning attire, Dodo cannot bring herself to demonize her late husband, something that comes all too easily to Kitty. Instead, she reflects on their time together–their clandestine and passionate courtship, when he was a force of nature and she a willing follower; and the salad days of their marriage, before too many children sapped her vitality and his interest. She uncovers the frighteningly hypnotic power of the celebrity author she married. Now liberated from his hold on her, Dodo finds the courage to face her adult children, the sister who betrayed her, and the charming actress who claimed her husband’s love and left her heart aching. A sweeping tale of love and loss that was long-listed for both the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize, Girl in a Blue Dress is both an intimate peek at the woman who was behind one of literature’s most esteemed men and a fascinating rumination on marriage that will resonate across centuries.

    But the question of how we understand the British Empire - its origins, nature, purpose, and effect on the world it ruled - is far from settled. In this incisive work, David Cannadine looks at the British Empire from a new perspective - through the eyes of those who created and ruled it - and offers fresh insight into the driving forces behind the Empire.Arguing against the views of Edward Said and others, Cannadine suggests that the British were motivated not only by race, but also by class. The British wanted to domesticate the exotic world of their colonies and to reorder the societies they ruled according to an idealized image of their own class hierarchies.

    Ellen Gowan is a famous dress designer for ladies of high society and one of the very few women in England who owns her own business. But her life wasn't always one of such privilege.The only surviving daughter of a Cambridge scholar-turned village minister and a beautiful woman who was disowned by her family for marrying for love, Ellen had a childhood plentiful in affection, if not in currency and dresses made of fine silks. Tragedy strikes on her thirteenth birthday, when her father dies suddenly, leaving Ellen and her mother penniless and dependent upon the kindness of her mother's estranged family.Life takes Ellen down various roads of opulence and depravity until she lands in the arms of the devlishly handsome Raoul de Valentin, whom she marries. Just when Ellen realizes that she is with child, Raoul abandons her. Determined to survive, she begins her long climb to success, first by toiling at a dress factory, then opening up her own salon in the fashionable Battle Square.Years pass, and Ellen has evolved into Madame Gowan, dress maker to royalty and the Great Six Hundred. All is truly well, until the day Raoul de Valentin unexpectedly arrives at her doorstep once more, threatening to destroy all that she has achieved.The Dressmaker is a romantic odyssey that takes readers into the most luxurious of ballrooms and the most squalid of brothels. It is the sweeping story of a true heroine and her quest to live life fully-to find success, love, and to find herself in an era when such ideas were unheard of for a woman. Brimming with romance, social intrigue and rich, detailed illustrations of Victorian London and its varied inhabitants, The Dressmaker will captivate readers.

    There the divide between the classes looms large. The absence of learning and want of knowledge is a constant cause of misery among the downtrodden. Ignorance is the reason the poor live - that is to say, they have not yet died - in ruinous places on dangerous streets that are avoided by all but those who live there.” Mentored in his youth by the wealthy patron Octavius Joy, Antonio was apprenticed to a baker and able to improve his station through this opportunity. So his heart is deeply moved when, on a frigid winter’s night, Christopher Spriggs and his four-year-old niece Ruby —characters that we first met in The Final Recollections of Charles Dickens — arrive on his doorstep. Having suffered the loss of her mother one year previous, the child is in desperate need of food, shelter, and as Antonio can feel firsthand, a way out of their crushing poverty.He takes them both under his wing and watches as they blossom under his tutelage. Ruby grows into a smart, precocious teenager, instilled with a love of books and learning by the everpresent Octavius Joy. But she’ll discover that a life of learning and comfort and security is not enough of a barrier against the machinations of life in nineteenth century London, and soon she’ll have new challenges to face to become the woman her mother wanted her to be.With gorgeous prose brimming with the atmosphere of historical London, The Legacy of Charles Dickens is wonderfully infused with everything the famous author believed in: education, literacy, the need to support the lower classes, and the redemption found in the strong bond of community. The novel is filled with the influence of his journalism and his classic Oliver Twist, as well as a deeply felt love story, an unpleasant villain, a full range of other Dickensian characters, and the unequaled passion of Dickens’s social conscience.

    Sunday lives for Saturday nights, when she makes the most of her Betty Grable looks at the Athenaeum Dance Hall. But Sunday's recklessly lived life is changed dramatically when, one summer morning in 1944, the laundry receives a direct hit from one of Hitler's V-1s, and she finds she is - and it seems permanently - deaf...

    She inherited her mother's stunning looks - she was known for her slender figure, gray-blue eyes, and blonde hair.When her father became pope, he sought to consolidate his power and arranged a marriage between fourteen-year-old Lucrezia and the first of her three husbands, twenty-eight-year-old Giovanni Sforza. Shortly after the marriage, Alexander, concluded he no longer needed an alliance with the Sforza family. He ordered Giovanni's assassination, but when the young bridegroom escaped, ended Lucrezia's marriage by ordering an annulment.Following the lengthy annulment process - during which Lucrezia was accused of having an affair and a child with Alexander's chamberlain Pedro Calderon, whose body was later found floating in Rome's Tiber River, “where he fell against his will” - Lucrezia was married to Alfonso of Aragon in 1498. Alexander appointed a pregnant Lucrezia governor of the Umbrian town of Spoleto in 1499. Alfonso, wary of shifting political alliances, fled Rome for a brief time, but returned in 1500, where he was murdered. Alfonso left Lucrezia with a son, Rodrigo.After Alfonso's conveniently timed murder, Alexander arranged a third marriage for Lucrezia, to Alfonso I d'Este, a powerful duke. The two had several children, and Lucrezia came into her own as a Renaissance woman, overcoming her scandalous reputation - despite several affairs - and maintaining her position and power as the Borgia family's influence and fortunes fell following Alexander's death.Lucrezia Borgia was a woman of and ahead of her time. Here is her little-told story.

    Based on a true story, Quakertown draws on the rich texture of the South -- of the Pecan Creek running along the edges of the town, the spectacular and rare white lilac, and the rising racial tensions that bubble under the surface and threaten to tear neighbors apart. With rare skill and compassion, Lee Martin carves out the delicate story of two families -- one white and one black -- and the child whose birth brings a gift of forgiveness.

    From difficult childhoods to fashion icons, from love matches to divorces, and from unrehearsed coronations to assassination attempts and untimely deaths.Curiosity about Britain’s rulers and their next of kin never seems to wane, and it is this compendium about the lives of the members of the Royal Family that makes this so utterly compelling.

    However, this book will provide an introduction to the powerful and dramatic history that is loosely termed 'Black History'. The study of Black History in the West has to be seen primarily in the context of American history where all men are created equal and that slavery and the fight for civil rights had its most profound effect.

    Here he argues that Canada did not begin in 1867; indeed, its foundation was laid by two visionary men, Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin. The two leaders of Lower and Upper Canada, respectively, worked together after the 1841 Union to lead a reformist movement for responsible government run by elected citizens instead of a colonial governor.But it was during the "Great Ministry" of 1848—51 that the two politicians implemented laws that created a more equitable country. They revamped judicial institutions, created a public education system, made bilingualism official, designed a network of public roads, began a public postal system, and reformed municipal governance. Faced with opposition, and even violence, the two men— polar opposites in temperament—united behind a set of principles and programs that formed modern Canada. Writing with verve and deep conviction, Saul restores these two extraordinary Canadians to rightful prominence.