But to many it is a vaguely recognizable name – a flippant tag for “the most remote place on earth.” With this fabled city as his goal, author Rick Antonson began a month-long trek. His initial plan? To get a haircut. Aided by an adventuresome spirit, Rick endures a forty-five hour train ride, a swindling travel agent, “Third World, three-lane” roads, rivers, and a flat deck ferry boat before finally reaching Timbuktu. Rick narrates the history of this elusive destination through the teachings of his Malian guide Zak, and encounters with stranded tourists, a camel owner, a riverboat captain, and the people who call Timbuktu home.Antonson’s eloquence and quiet wit highlight the city’s myths—the centuries old capital and traveler’s dream—as well as its realities: A city gripped by poverty, where historic treasures lie close to the sands of destruction. Indeed, some 700,000 ancient manuscripts remain there, endangered. Both a travelogue and a history of a place long forgotten, To Timbuktu for a Haircut emerges as a plea to preserve the past and open cultural dialogues on a global scale.The second edition of this important book outlines the volatile political situations in Timbuktu following the spring 2012 military coup in Mali and the subsequent capture of the city by Islamic extremists. Literally, it is a race against time to save the city’s irreplaceable artifacts, mosques, and monuments, and to understand why Timbuktu’s past is essential to the future of Africa.

    Now, James McGrath Morris skillfully illuminates this ambitious, influential, and groundbreaking woman's life, from her childhood growing up in South Chicago to her career as a journalist and network news commentator, reporting on some of the most crucial events in modern American history. Morris draws on a rich and untapped collection of Payne’s personal papers documenting her private and professional affairs. He combed through oral histories, FBI documents, and newspapers to fully capture Payne’s life, her achievements, and her legacy. He introduces us to a journalist who covered such events as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Little Rock school desegregation crisis, the service of black troops in Vietnam, and Henry Kissinger’s 26,000-mile tour of Africa. A self-proclaimed “instrument of change” for her people, Payne broke new ground as the Washington correspondent for the Chicago Defender. She publicly prodded President Dwight D. Eisenhower to support desegregation, and her reporting on legislative and judicial civil rights battles enlightened and activated black readers across the nation. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson recognized Payne’s seminal role by presenting her with a pen used in signing the Civil Rights Act. In 1972, she became the first female African American radio and television commentator on a national network, working for CBS. Her story mirrors the evolution of our own modern society.Inspiring and instructive, moving and comprehensive, Eye on the Struggle illuminates this extraordinary woman and her achievements, and reminds us of the power one person has to transform our lives and our world.

    Eleven were hanged. In New Haven, William Meeker was accused of cutting off and burning his pig's ears and tail as he cast a bewitching spell. After the hanging of Fairfield's Goody Knapp, magistrates cut down and searched her body for the marks of the devil. Through newspaper clippings, court records, letters and diaries, author Cynthia Wolfe Boynton uncovers the dark history of the Connecticut witch trials.

    And writers love to attend and document these occasions. The party is a useful literary device, not only for social commentary and satire but also as an occasion where characters can meet, fall in and out of love, or even get murdered.A Curious Invitation is a humorous and informative guide to literature's most memorable parties. Some of these parties are depictions of real events, like the Duchess of Richmond's ball on the eve of battle with Napoleon in Thackeray's Vanity Fair; others draw on the authors' experience of the society they lived in, such as Lady Metroland's party in Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies; while others come straight from the writer's bizarre imagination, like Douglas Adams' flying party above an unknown planet from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.Witty, entertaining, and full of fabulous detail, A Curious Invitation offers readers the chance to crash some of the great parties in literary history.

    It also shines a light on topics such as the origins of scalping, the famous Lincoln County War, the grim medical reality of Western gunfights, cowboy jargon, and the first rodeo.

    In 1942, the killings began in Poland. With his family and friends decimated by the roundups, Blaichman decided that he would rather die fighting; he set off for the forest to find the underground bunkers of Jews who had already escaped. Together they formed a partisan force dedicated to fighting the Germans. This is a harrowing, utterly moving memoir of a young Polish Jew who chose not to go quietly and defied the mighty German war machine during World War II.

     When Leif the Lucky and his Viking explorers linked Europe and America with their settlement at Vinland it marked a profound change in the world. Suddenly, almost every region on earth was in touch with its neighbours, spanning continents and oceans. For a few years, it was in theory possible to send a message all the way round the world. At the time, no one could possibly have known this, or what it would lead to. But in hindsight the early 11th century gives us a brief hint of today’s global unity. But what was the world like 1,000 years ago? What would a traveller have seen as they ventured across the continents? John Man circles the globe at the turn of the millennium to explore its major cultures, revealing many surprises. Islam was confident and curious, Europe was just awakening after its dark-age slumber, and Asia was home to the world’s most refined civilizations, while some aboriginal peoples were modifying age-old ways in Australia, Africa and the Americas. A Viking Odyssey is a fascinating and sumptuous account of the world in the year 1,000, bringing to life the diversity of human cultures, from hunter-gatherers to sophisticated city-dwellers, and the links between them. This book is a revised edition of Atlas of the Year 1,000, with new contributions from John Man. “A splendidly conceived and executed idea.” Dr. John Roberts, The New Penguin History of the World. “Just brilliant. A real contribution to world history.” Prof. Robert Moore, University of Newcastle. “A splendid accomplishment.” Dean R. Snow, Professor and Head of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University. “A wealth of fascinating information.” Ray Inskeep, formerly Professor of Archaeology, University of Cape Town. “A fascinating snapshot of all corners of the world at the dawn of the global age” David Northrup, Dept of History, Boston College, USA. “A fresh look at the world at the dawn of the past millennium”. Science News. “The most original of all the spate of books that came out during the millennium.” Michael Palin. JOHN MAN is a bestselling historian and traveller specializing in Central Asia (in particular Mongolia). Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection is a best-seller in 21 languages. His other books include Attila the Hun, Kublai Khan, The Terracotta Army, and The Great Wall. In 2014, Xanadu was published in the US as Marco Polo, to accompany the Netflix TV series. His most recent book, Saladin, appeared in April 2015. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    That crusade almost wiped out the Cathars, a group of heretical Christians whose beliefs threatened the authority of the Catholic Church. But decades of harrowing repression-enforced by the ruthless Pope Boniface VIII , the Machiavellian French King Philip the Fair of France, and the pitiless grand inquisitor of Toulouse, Bernard Gui (the villain in The Name of the Rose)-had bred resentment. In the city of Carcassonne, anger at the abuses of the Inquisition reached a boiling point and a great orator and fearless rebel emerged to unite the resistance among Cathar and Catholic alike. The people rose up, led by the charismatic Franciscan friar Bernard Délicieux and for a time reclaimed control of their lives and communities. Having written the acclaimed chronicle of the Cathars The Perfect Heresy , Stephen O'Shea returns to the medieval world to chronicle a rare and remarkable story of personal courage and principle standing up to power, amidst the last vestiges of the endlessly fascinating Cathar world.Praise for The Perfect Heresy :"At once a cautionary tale about the corruption of temporal power...and an accounting of the power of faith ...It is also just a darn good read."-Baltimore Sun "An accessible, readable history with lessons ...that were not learned by broad humanity until it saw 20th-century tyrants applying the goals and methods of the Inquisition on a universal scale."-New York Times

    And then she laughs.” In this volume, which collects and amplifies two-and-a-half years’ worth of blog entries, he combs through the first three novels in Austen’s canon — Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park — with the aim of charting her growth as both a novelist and a humorist, and of shattering the notion that she’s a romantic of any kind (“Weddings bore her, and the unrelenting vulgarity of our modern wedding industry — which strives to turn each marriage ceremony into the kind of blockbuster apotheosis that makes grand opera look like a campfire sing along — would appall her into derisive laughter”).“Hilarious…Rodi’s title is a tribute. He’s angry that the Austen craze has defanged a novelist who’s ‘wicked, arch, and utterly merciless. She skewers the pompous, the pious, and the libidinous with the animal glee of a natural-born sadist’…Like Rodi, I believe Austen deserves to join the grand pantheon of gadflies: Voltaire and Swift, Twain and Mencken.” Lev Raphael, The Huffington Post

    What became of so many of those veterans - Union and Confederate alike - fifty years after the end of that terrible war?GETTYSBURG, 1913: THE COMPLETE NOVEL OF THE GREAT REUNION (originally published as a 3-part serialized novel; now available in one complete volume) July 1-3, 1863: The famed Battle of Gettysburg turns the tide of the Civil War, but not before approximately 50,000 soldiers from both sides become casualties during those three terrible days of carnage.June 29-July 4, 1913: To commemorate the 50th anniversary of The Battle of Gettysburg, more than 50,000 Civil War Veterans ranging in age from 61 to more than 100 years old converge on the scene of that titanic battle half a century earlier in an occasion of healing that was known as The Great Reunion.Abraham Lincoln had incorrectly surmised in his famed Gettysburg Address that "the world will little note nor long remember what we say here" four months after the battle itself, but those very words could well be said about The Great Reunion that occurred half a century later. Though at the time the 1913 gathering was a widely anticipated, momentous commemoration with 50,000 spectators joining the 50,000 veterans, the grandest of all gatherings of Civil War veterans has been all but forgotten in the nearly 100 years since that occasion.Until now.GETTYSBURG, 1913: THE COMPLETE NOVEL OF THE GREAT REUNION_______Travel back in time to spend the Great Reunion in the company of these unforgettable characters (and others) in this meticulously researched tale:Doctor Samuel Chambers, a young unmarried Philadelphia physician thrust into great responsibility as Pennsylvania's chief planner of medical and aid facilities for more than 50,000 Civil War veterans, averaging 70 years of age...all of whom will be spending the duration of The Great Reunion encamped in outdoor tents under temperatures expected to approach or even exceed 100 degrees.Louisa May Sterling, a Gettysburg nurse and the young widow of a West Point-educated Army officer whose untimely death from typhoid left her alone with only her son Randall for companionship...but for whom The Great Reunion opens up an unexpected second chance at happiness when she meets Samuel Chambers.Angus Findlay, now just past his 85th birthday but during the Battle of Gettysburg a dashing cavalry officer serving with the Army of Northern Virginia directly under the legendary J.E.B. Stuart...and who became a leading figure in Virginia politics during Reconstruction.Chester Morrison, a classic Gilded Age Titan of Industry (and recent widower) from Philadelphia who decades earlier had been a green private facing battle for the first time at Gettysburg.Edgar and Johnny Sullivan, brothers from Illinois who had been members of the Union Cavalry Division that arrived at Gettysburg the day before the battle began. Years later, the Sullivans became allies of the Earp brothers in Tombstone and were first-hand witnesses to the evolution of Arizona from Old West to the early 20th century.Ned Tomlinson, a Confederate veteran from Norfolk, Virginia who lost his left leg during the ill-fated assault known ever since as Pickett's Charge before being taken prisoner by the Yankees.John K. Tener, the real-life Governor of Pennsylvania - born in County Tyrone, Ireland, only weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg - who was a former Major League baseball player and under whose leadership The Great Reunion was planned and held.

    Epic in scope and set against the beautifully rendered backdrop of Renaissance Italy, The Borgias is a thrilling new depiction of these celebrated personalities and an era unsurpassed in beauty, terror, and intrigue.

    For the first time in history, people became civilized. This globe- and time-trotting book vividly describes how a number of major civilizations - the Mayans, the Egyptians, the Khmers, the Etruscans, and more - emerged, thrived, faded, but left a mark on our collective imagination and culture. Memories of some of these civilizations linger in the form of legends. Some left monuments whose meaning seemed inscrutable to later ages. Still others vanished under desert sands, floods, or tropical jungles. This sharply observed and meticulously researched book unearths the stories and the cultures that make us who we are today.

    Przemysl, Poland. No one has explained to three-year-old Renatka what war is. She knows her Tatus, a doctor, is away with the Polish Army, that her beautiful Mamusia is no longer allowed to work at the university, and that their frequent visitors-among them Great Aunt Zuzia and Uncle Julek with their gifts of melon and clothes-have stopped appearing. One morning Mamusia comes home with little yellow six-pointed stars for them to wear. Renatka thinks they will keep her family safe.In June of 1942, soldiers in gray-green uniforms take Renata, Mamusia, and grandmother Babcia to the Ghetto where they are crammed into one room with other frightened families. The adults are forced to work long hours at the factory and to survive on next to no food. One day Mamusia and Babcia do not return from their shifts. Six years old and utterly alone, Renata is passed from place to place and survives through the willingness of ordinary people to take the most deadly risks. Her unlikely blonde hair and blue eyes and other twists of fate save her life but stories become her salvation. Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales transport her to an enchanted world; David Copperfield helps her cope on her own; and she longs for the family in Swallows and Amazons. A chronicle of the horrors of war, Let Me Tell You a Story is a powerful and moving memoir of growing up in a disturbing world, and of the magical discovery of books.

    In this book, we get to hear Cavett's best tales, as he recounts great moments with the legendary entertainers who crossed his path and offers his own trenchant commentary on contemporary American culture and politics.

    He did extensive work on the history of the Vijayanagara Empire, particularly the fall of Hampi, the empire's capital. He translated The Vijayanagar Empire as Seen by Domingo Paes and Fernao Nuniz - described as an eyewitness account of Portuguese travellers to India in the 16th century and report on the Vijayanagar Empire. His other works include: Analytical History of India (1870), Eclipses of the Moon in India (1878), Antiquarian Remains in Presidency of Madras (1882), A Sketch of the Dynasties of S. India (1883), South Indian Chronological Tables (1889) and The Indian Calendar (with S. B. Dikshit) (1896).