Theo Aronson's The Kaisers is the story of six people whose bitter differences were a microcosm of, and greatly influenced, a national conflict which echoed all round the world. Kaiser Wilhelm I, born 1797, King of Prussia 1861, proclaimed Emperor of all Germany 1871, died only in 1888 an autocratic, militaristic man of the eighteenth century completely opposed to the liberalizing ideas which swept Europe in his lifetime. In contrast his Empress, Augusta, was progressive in thought, open-minded in outlook, yet with all had a taste for the theatrical and pageantry of her royal status. The best of her was seen in their son, Kaiser Frederick III, who was Crown Prince for all but the last few cancer-torn weeks of his life. He personified the best of European liberalism of the nineteenth century. In this he was supported—many said unduly influenced by his energetic and vivacious English wife Victoria, Queen Victoria's eldest and 'Dearest Child', who brought to the marriage the enlightened ideals and hopes of her shrewd, practical mother and her far-seeing father, the Prince Consort. The tragedy, the tempting speculation of Germany's history, is that this couple reigned for only three months before Frederick III's death brought their son to the throne. Kaiser Wilhelm II, 'Kaiser Bill' of the first World War, was again the antithesis of everything his parents stood for. Queen Victoria's hopes that her grandson might be 'wise, sensible, courageous — liberal-minded — good and pure', could hardly have been more misplaced. The sixth, the dominating figure in the Hohenzollern story, is Prince Otto von Bismarck, the ruthless 'Iron Chancellor', virtual dictator of Germany for nearly thirty years. He served all three Kaisers, claiming with justification that on his shoulders he had carried the first to the Imperial throne—where he manipulated him to his will despite the hatred and manoeuvrings of the Empress Augusta. He feared the reign of the short-lived second Kaiser and feared more perhaps (and never missed an opportunity to disparage) the Empress Victoria and the constant, commonsense influence from England of her mother. (`That', he said ruefully after their one meeting, 'was a woman ! One could do business with her ! ') Their son he flattered, siding with him against his parents, and in so doing brought about his own downfall, when the vainglorious young man he had schooled as Crown Prince came as Kaiser to believe that he could do without his mentor. But for Europe it was too late, and the policies of one and the vanities of the other were already leading Europe helter-skelter into the holocaust of 'the Kaiser's War'. Theo Aronson's gifts as a writer have deservedly brought him high regard as a chronicler of the complex histories of Europe's great ruling Houses. Rarely have his talents been better employed than in this study of the comet-like rise and fall of the House of Hohenzollern, the House of the Kaisers of Germany. It is a story of bitter, almost continual conflict, yet even in what can now be seen as a path to inevitable destruction Mr. Aronson finds passages of light and shade that show the Hohenzollerns not simply as Wagnerian puppets posturing on a vast European stage, but people deserving of our understanding and compassion.

    Is Seth planning to leave the world's most powerful empire to Ramses, and not his corrupt brother, Shaanar? Before he knows it, the younger prince is surrounded by enemies and turning to his friends: Moses, the brilliant young Hebrew; Setau, the snake charmer and mage; Ahmeni; the frail scholar; and Set and Nefertari, the two beautiful women Ramses loves.And so begins the journey of the hero the world has yet to know... Let the saga begin.The first in Christian Jacque's bestselling Ramses series, recounting the thrilling story of Ramses, the legendary king who ruled Egypt for more than 60 years. Ramses sets into motion a tapestry of royal intrigue, treacherous plots, and romantic adventures that will keep readers spellbound and hungry for more.

    Napoleon himself, expiring at 51 after a lifetime of robust health, suspected otherwise and ordered a thorough autopsy. His suspicions were well founded. So clever was the crime, however, that until recent developments in forensic science, it was impossible to prove a case of murder, let alone name the killer. Now, the authors of The Murder of Napoleon assert, it has been done-by a brilliant man whose 20-year inquest, a feat of detection, has produced one of history's greatest surprises. "Sensational...as gripping as a detective novel yet scrupulously observant of historical fact" (Publishers Weekly) Author Biography: David Hapgood was an editor and writer for The New York Times. He is author or co-author of The Murder of Napoleon, The Screwing of the Average Man, Monte Cassino, and Africa from Independence to Tomorrow. He is a graduate of Swarthmore College and lives in New York City.

    Introduced with a new foreword by Antonio Loprieno.Volume II shows the culmination of these literary genres within the single period known as the New Kingdom (1550-1080 B.C.). With a new foreword by Hans-W. Fischer-Elfert.Volume III spans the last millennium of Pharaonic civilization, from the tenth century B.C. to the beginning of the Christian era. With a new foreword by Joseph G. Manning.

    On a stiflingly hot day in August 30 b.c., the thirty-nine-year-old queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, took her own life rather than be paraded in chains through Rome by her conqueror, Octavian--the future first emperor, Augustus. A few days earlier, her lover of eleven years, Mark Antony, had himself committed suicide and died in her arms. Oceans of mythology have grown up around them, all of which Diana Preston explores in her stirring history of the lives and times of a couple whose names--more than two millennia later--still invoke passion, curiosity, and intrigue.Preston views the drama and romance of Cleopatra and Antony's personal lives as an integral part of the great military, political, and ideological struggle that culminated in the full-fledged rise of the Roman Empire, joined east and west. Perhaps not until Joanna in fourteenth-century Naples or Elizabeth I of England would another woman show such political shrewdness and staying power as did Cleopatra during her years atop the throne of Egypt. Her lengthy affair with Julius Caesar linked the might of Egypt with that of Rome; in the aftermath of the civil war that erupted following Caesar's murder, her alliance with Antony, and his subsequent split with Octavian, set the stage for the end of the Republic.With the keen eye for detail, abundant insight, and storytelling skill that have won awards for her previous books, Diana Preston sheds new light on a vitally important period in Western history. Indeed, had Cleopatra and Antony managed to win the battle of Actium, the centuries that followed, which included the life of Jesus himself, could well have played out differently.

    Boss of the Richardson Gang and rival of the Krays, to cross him would result in brutal repercussions. Famously arrested on the day England won the World Cup in 1966, his trial heard he allegedly used iron bars, bolt cutters and electric shocks on his enemies.The Last Gangster is Richardson’s frank account of his largely untold life story, finished just before his death in September 2012. He shares the truth behind the rumours and tells of his feuds with the Krays for supremacy, undercover missions involving politicians, many lost years banged up in prison and reveals shocking secrets about royalty, phone hacking, bent coppers and the infamous black box.Straight up, shocking and downright gripping, this is the ultimate exposé on this legendary gangster and his extraordinary life.

    Time, Continuity, and Change- Accounts of past events, people, places, and situations contribute to our understanding of the pastI. Culture- People, societies, and cultures address needs and concerns in ways that are both similar and different

    From diverse backgrounds, they met at The Slade in London between 1908 and 1910, in what was later described as the school’s “last crisis of brilliance.” Between 1910 and 1918 they loved, talked, and fought; they admired, conspired, and sometimes disparaged each others’ artistic creations. They created new movements; they frequented the most stylish cafés and restaurants and founded a nightclub; they slept with their models and with prostitutes; and their love affairs descended into obsession, murder, and suicide.

    In September 1970, two boys met in the playground on their first day at secondary school in North London. They formed what would be described at the Old Bailey thirty years later as ‘a unique and wicked bond’. Between 1982 and 1986, striking near lonely railway stations in London and the Home Counties, their partnership took them from rape to murder. Three police forces pooled their resources to catch them in the biggest criminal manhunt since the Yorkshire Ripper Enquiry.A Dangerous Place is the first full-length account of the crimes of John Duffy and David Mulcahy. Told by the son of one of the police officers who led the enquiry, exhaustively researched and with unprecedented access, this is the story of two of the most notorious serial killers of the twentieth century and the times they operated in. It is the story of the women who died at their hands. It is the story of the women who survived them, and who had the courage to ensure justice was done. And it is the story of a father, told by a son.

    Here, historian Alexander Ivanov reveals their fears and betrayals, privilege and debauchery, conspiracies and rivalries, love and tragedy as they forged Russia into one of the world's greatest empires. No ruler in history has embodied the oppressive domination of these rulers more vividly than Alexander Ivanov's opening subject, Tsar Ivan IV, the first of all the Russian tsars, known to history as Ivan the Terrible. Although a gifted ruler who did much to unite and improve the conditions in his primitive country, Ivan was also a notorious sadist who delighted in torturing and murdering anyone who displeased him. Ivan's death in 1584 ushered in the Time of Troubles, thirty-five years of famine, plague, and war that crippled the nation. A series of rulers attempted to cope with the devastation, beginning with Ivan's successor Boris Godunov. Finally, grasping for stability, Russia's nobles begged young Michael Romanov, the great-nephew of Ivan's beloved wife Anastasia, to take the throne. Michael successfully united the war-torn and ravaged nation and founded a dynasty that would rule for 300 years. The Romanov line produced Russia's most brilliant yet most unconventional sovereign: Peter the Great, a towering figure of a man whose restless, creative mind led him on an inexorable quest to modernize and civilize the still backward nation. The reforms he enacted so enraged nobles and peasants alike that Peter had to quash a series of rebellions to keep his crown. Ruthlessly stifling dissent and massacring rebels, he ultimately cowed the Russian people into submission, achieving a legacy that nearly equaled his ambitions. It was left to a woman - and a foreigner, at that - to lead the nation further out of the darkness. German princess Sophie Friederike Auguste of Anhalt-Zerbst, known to the world as Catherine the Great, absorbed the principles of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and applied them to a country built on the backs of millions of serfs. However ineffective some of her policies, in the end, she made Russia a major player on the European stage. Serfdom was finally abolished in the nineteenth century, but it would be decades before Russian peasants could own land of their own and learn to farm it productively. The boyars and tsars clung to power until the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. The sad fate of the last tsar, Nicholas II, and his family, marked the end of the absolute power that Ivan the Terrible had so exploited. The abuses would continue but under a new and drastically different form of government.

    But there are also tales told for pleasure about magic, treasure and adventure - even the first ever Cinderella story.

    Assuming no knowledge on the part of the reader, it shows how to interpret the information on the inscriptions in a step-by-step journey through the script and language of ancient Egypt.We enter the world of the ancient Egyptians and explore their views on life and death, Egypt and the outside world, humanity and the divine. The book draws on texts found on some thirty artifacts ranging from coffins to stelae to obelisks found in museums in Egypt, America, and Europe, and selected across two thousand years. The texts are then explained clearly, and are supported by full translations, photographs, and line drawings.

    Illustrated with both color photos and black-and-white drawings, this groundbreaking study goes back more than 3,000 years to a village where the workers who created the tombs of the Pharaohs and the Valley of the Kings resided. "John Romer is an archeologist with a genius for raising the busy ghosts of ancient Egypt."--Sunday Times

    The author assures us it is not!Three years before they came together, four young American men left their fraternities and college campuses for an adventure exceeding their imaginations. Wanting something more than the draft and unknown to each other, they chose Naval Aviation as the next step in their lives. Generally, they were better than their navy peers, all qualifying for high performance aircraft to be flown from steel decks over foreign seas. They would become the pointy end of the stick in aerial battles over North Vietnam, the most heavily defended patch of real estate in the history of aerial warfare. They were to do this in 1967, the year in which Naval Aviation experienced its greatest losses.These four young men, now Lieutenants Junior Grade, United States Navy, were ordered to Attack Squadron 34 to fly A4 Skyhawks into combat. They were assigned Junior Officer's stateroom 0111 aboard USS Intrepid, a venerable aircraft carrier with a distinguished history. This "bunkroom" better known to them as Triple Sticks was the repository for a log (in navy terms) or journal written by these four young aviators. Forty years later this log was the genesis of this memoir.In the lethal environment over the northern reaches of North Vietnam or ashore in the Officer's clubs and bars of Asia, the writing brings to life wonderful humor, bizarre behavior, vivid aerial battles, uncommon loyalty, anger, frustration and respect. One survived or did not according to his skill and luck.

    But what seemed a difficult task only becomes more grueling when Amenhotep loses himself in his radical obsessions.Standing alone to bear the burden of a failing country and stem the tide of a growing rebellion, Nefertiti must choose between her love for Pharaoh and her duty to Egypt in this dramatic retelling of a story forgotten by time.Salvation in the Sun is the first volume of Lauren Lee Merewether's debut series, The Lost Pharaoh Chronicles, a resurrection of an erased time that follows the five Kings of Egypt who were lost to history for over three millennia. The story continues in book two, Secrets in the Sand.