But as Morris Rossabi reveals in this VeryShort Introduction, within two generations of their bloody conquests, the Mongols evolved from conquerors and predators to wise rulers who devised policies to foster the economies of the lands they had subjugated. By adopting political and economic institutions familiar to the local populations andrecruiting native officials, they won over many of their non-Mongol subjects. In addition, Mongol nobles were ardent patrons of art and culture, supporting the production of Chinese porcelains and textiles, Iranian tiles and illustrated manuscripts, and Russian metalwork. Perhaps most important, thepeace imposed by the Mongols on much of Asia and their promotion of trade resulted in considerable interaction among merchants, scientists, artists, and missionaries of different ethnic groups--including Europeans. Modern Eurasian and perhaps global history starts with the Mongol empire.

    Ruling London's underworld for more than a decade, as gang lords they were among the most powerful and feared men in the city. Photographed by David Bailey and even interviewed for television, they became celebrities in their own right and are infamous to this day.Ronnie and Reg's reign of terror ended on 8 March 1969 when they were sentenced to life with the recommendation that they serve at least thirty years. Ronnie ended his days in Broadmoor - his raging insanity only controlled by massive doses of drugs. Reg served almost three decades in some of Britain's toughest jails before being released on compassionate grounds in August 2000. He died of cancer eight months later.Compiled from a series of interviews with Fred Dinenage from behind prison walls, Our Story is the classic account that explodes the myths surrounding the Kray twins. In it, the twins set the record straight. In their own words they tell the full story of their brutal career of crime and their years behind bars. With a new introduction from Fred Dinenage, this compelling, disturbing and highly readable book is the definitive story of two legendary criminals.

    An entire section is dedicated to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald -- the most famous maritime loss in modern times -- in Lake Superior in 1975.Chilling watercolor illustrations, photographs, maps, and news clippings accentuate Ratigan's compelling and dramatic storytelling. Sailors, historians, and general readers alike will be swept away by these unforgettable tales of tragedy and heroism.

    Glacier National Park's death records date back to January 1913, when a man froze to death while snowshoeing between Cut Bank and St. Mary. All told, 260 people have died or are presumed to have died in the park during the first hundred years of its existence. One man fell into a crevasse on East Gunsight Peak while skiing its steep north face, and another died while moonlight biking on the Sun Road. A man left his wife and five children at the Apgar picnic area and disappeared on Lake McDonald. His boat was found halfway up the west shore wedged between rocks with the propeller stuck in gravel. Collected here are some the most gripping accounts in park history of these unfortunate events caused by natural forces or human folly.

      Harris’s action-packed introduction presents a civilization rich in contrasts, combining orthodox Christianity with paganism, and classical Greek learning with Roman power. Frequently assailed by numerous armies—including those of Islam—Byzantium nonetheless survived and even flourished by dint of its somewhat unorthodox foreign policy and its sumptuous art and architecture, which helped to embed a deep sense of Byzantine identity in its people.   Enormously engaging and utilizing a wealth of sources to cover all major aspects of the empire’s social, political, military, religious, cultural, and artistic history, Harris’s study illuminates the very heart of Byzantine civilization and explores its remarkable and lasting influence on its neighbors and on the modern world.

    In How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World, Francis Wheen brilliantly laments the extraordinary rise of superstition, relativism and emotional hysteria. From Middle Eastern fundamentalism to the rise of lotteries, astrology to mysticism, poststructuralism to the Third Way, Wheen shows that there has been a pervasive erosion of Enlightenment values, which have been displaced by nonsense. And no country has a more vivid parade of the bogus and bizarre than the one founded to embody Enlightenment values: the USA. In turn comic, indignant, outraged, and just plain baffled by the idiocy of it all, How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World is a masterful depiction of the absurdity of our times and a plea that we might just think a little more and believe a little less.

    In 1985 Hans von Ohain, the scientist who pioneered Nazi Germany's efforts to build a jet plane, posed the question: 'Would World War II have occured if the Luftwaffe knew it faced operational British jets instead of Spitfires?' He immediately answered, 'I, for one, think not.'Frank Whittle, working-class outsider and self-taught enthusiast, had worked out the blueprint of a completely new type of engine in 1929, only for his ideas to be blocked by bureaucratic opposition until the outbreak of war in 1939. The importance of his work was recognized too late by the government for his revolutionary engine to play a major part in World War II. After the war Whittle's dream of civilian jet-powered aircraft became a reality and Britain enjoyed a golden age of 1950's jet-powered flight.Drawing on Whittle's extensive private papers, Campbell-Smith tells the story of a stoic and overlooked British hero, a tantalizing tale of 'what might have been'.

    No one could fathom how a vessel equipped with satellite communications, a sophisticated navigation system, and cutting-edge weather forecasting could suddenly vanish—until now.Relying on hundreds of exclusive interviews with family members and maritime experts, as well as the words of the crew members themselves—whose conversations were captured by the ship’s data recorder—journalist Rachel Slade unravels the mystery of the sinking of El Faro. As she recounts the final twenty-four hours onboard, Slade vividly depicts the officers’ anguish and fear as they struggled to carry out Captain Michael Davidson’s increasingly bizarre commands, which, they knew, would steer them straight into the eye of the storm. Taking a hard look at America's aging merchant marine fleet, Slade also reveals the truth about modern shipping—a cut-throat industry plagued by razor-thin profits and ever more violent hurricanes fueled by global warming.A richly reported account of a singular tragedy, Into the Raging Sea takes us into the heart of an age-old American industry, casting new light on the hardworking men and women who paid the ultimate price in the name of profit.

     The Lake formed the boundary between German East Africa (now Tanzania) and the Belgian Congo, and no Allied vessel could be brought against the gunboat because the only completed railway to the Lake was in German territory. No British or Belgian forces could advance into German territory because the Germans could always land troops behind them to cut their lines of communication. Breaking that hold was a military necessity and an incredibly difficult and dangerous task. Not only did the crew have to outwit the Germans but also navigate 3,000 miles of the world’s most hazardous and disease-ridden country. For Lieutenant-Commander Spicer-Simson the dilemma facing the Allied High Command was simply the chance for an incredible adventure. So the sailor turned explorer. Thus began the most astounding voyage in naval history, as ‘Spicer’ led an expedition of two motor-boats through hundreds of miles of bush and mountains to reach the Lake, through a wilderness laid waste by sleeping-sickness and uncharted by roads or communications of any kind. Here is one of the strangest, most exciting passages in the history of the Royal Navy – the true-life adventure which inspired C. S. Forester’s The African Queen. Praise for Phantom Flotilla… ‘A wonderful adventure yarn made all the more absorbing because it really did happen’ - The Evening News Peter Shankland was a military historian whose books include Byron of the Wager, The Phantom Flotilla and Dardanelles Patrol, a story of the submarine operation against Turkey in World War I.

    Adoption was a shameful business then in many people's eyes, the babies being mostly illegitimate. Better not speak of it.' Allan Ahlberg was adopted as a baby. In 1938 he was picked up in London by his new mother and taken back to Oldbury in the Black Country. Now one of the most successful children's book writers in the world, in The Bucket he describes an oddly enchanted childhood lived out in an industrial town during the 1940s, in conditions which today we might describe as 'deprived'. He writes of a father in overalls smelling of wood shavings and oil, of a tough and fiercely protective mother who cries when he discovers that he is adopted, of life assurance policies ('£6 if the child dies under age 3') and fearsome bacon slicers, of half-remembered trips to his mother's sister's grave and to the bluebell woods. And of his first days at school: 'Allan could do much better. He is most inattentive and dreamy at times' (school report, December 1946). Using a mix of prose and poetry, supported by new drawings by his daughter Jessica and old photographs, The Bucket retrieves a childhood which lovers of Ahlberg's classic picturebooks The Baby's Catalogue, Burglar Bill and Peepo! might feel they have glimpsed before but which are now exquisitely brought to life. This beautiful, exquisitely designed book, which will also appeal to fans of Gervase Phinn, Alan Bennett, Roald Dahl and Nigel Slater's Toast, will be loved by generations of Ahlberg fans. 'Allan Ahlberg has a string of children's classics to his name' Nicolette Jones, Guardian Born in Croydon but brought up by his adopted parents in the Black Country town of Oldbury, Allan Ahlberg held jobs as a gravedigger, postman and plumber's mate before becoming a teacher. He taught for ten years before collaborating with his wife Janet on a series of much-loved, now classic children's picture books including Peepo!, Burglar Bill, Cops and Robbers, Each Peach Pear Plum, Woof!, Heard it in the Playground, Please Mrs Butler, The Boyhood of Burglar Bill, The Pencil, Friendly Matches, The Improbable Cat, Goldilocks, My Brother's Ghost, The Mighty Slide, Collected Poems, The Boy, the Wolf, the Sheep and the Lettuce and The Ha Ha Bonk Book.

    Yet throughout her brief life, Diana was plagued by rumor, innuendo, and scandal. With exclusive access to those closest to Diana, Sarah Bradford now casts aside the gossip and lies and takes us to the very heart of the royal family to separate the myth from the truth of the Diana years. Diana follows the old-fashioned courtship that saw her captivate the Prince of Wales; the transformation of an unworldly teenager into an emotionally demanding, but adoring, wife and mother; the damage caused by the ever-present specter of Camilla Parker Bowles; and the eventual collapse of a doomed marriage once hailed as the ultimate fairy tale. Bradford examines Diana’s lovers and her relationships with her staff, friends, and family, as well as her children, husband, and the royal family. She also charts Diana’s profound commitment to her charities and her rare connection to and empathy with all those she met; the struggle to find an identity after the separation from Charles; and the final, complicated year as a single woman. With the authority missing from all previous accounts, as well as remarkable new sources and firsthand accounts, acclaimed royal biographer Sarah Bradford delivers a complex and explosive study of one of the most popular figures of the twentieth century.

    Thus began their extraordinary journey to Java. Covering 4,162 miles, the small boat was battered by continuous storms, and the men on board suffered crippling illness, near starvation, and attacks by islanders. The journey was one of the greatest achievements in the history of European seafaring and a personal triumph for a man who has been misjudged by history.Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare reveals Bligh's great mapmaking skills, used to particular effect while he was exploring with Captain Cook. We discover his guilt over Cool's death at Kealakekua Bay. We learn of the failure of the Bounty expedition and the myths that surround it, the trials and retributions that followed Bligh's return to England, his successes as a navigator and as a vice-admiral fighting next to Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen.Combining extensive research with dazzling storytelling, John Toohey tells a gripping tale of seafaring, exploration, and mutiny on the high seas, while also dismissing the black legend of the cruel and foulmouthed Captain William Bligh and reinstating him not just as a man of his times but as a true hero.

    Kennedy, Jr., as a young boy, peering out from under his father’s desk in the Oval Office. But few realize that the desk itself plays a part in one of the world’s most extraordinary mysteries—a dramatic tale that has never before been told in its full scope. Acclaimed historian Martin Sandler—a two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, winner of seven Emmy® Awards, and author of more than 50 books—finally brings the entire story to light. This amazing high-seas adventure encompasses the search for the Northwest Passage in the early 1800s; a renowned explorer and his crew of 128 men who vanish during an 1845 expedition; 39 incredible, heroic attempted rescue missions; a ghost ship that drifts for more than 1,200 miles; a queen’s gratitude; and that famous desk. Fascinating rare photographs, paintings, engravings, and maps illustrate the book throughout.It all began when, in one of the biggest news stories of the 19th century, Sir John Franklin and his ships the Erebus and the Terror disappeared while attempting to locate the fabled Northwest Passage. At the request of Franklin’s wife, Lady Jane, the first mission set out from England in hopes of finding him; many others followed in its wake, none successful.Among these was the Resolute, the finest vessel in Queen Victoria’s Navy. But in 1854 it became locked in Arctic ice and was abandoned by its captain. A year later, a Connecticut whaler discovered it 1,200 miles away—drifting and deserted, a 600-ton ghost ship. He and his small crew boarded the Resolute, and steered it through a ferocious hurricane back to New London, Connecticut. The United States government then reoutfitted the ship and returned it to the thankful Queen. In 1879, when the Resolute was finally retired, she had the best timbers made into a desk for then-President Rutherford B. Hayes. It is still used by U.S. presidents today...one of the most celebrated pieces of furniture in the White House.

    An account of what it was like to grow up a White Sox fan in a Cubs nation, this title covers the history of the organisation, from the heartbreak of 1967 and the South-Side Hit Men to the disco demolition and the magical 2005 season when they became world champions.