In Shadow King, Lauren Johnson tells his remarkable and sometimes shocking story in a fast-paced and colourful narrative that captures both the poignancy of Henry's life and the tumultuous and bloody nature of the times in which he lived.

    He was 45: a literary legend, a national treasure, married with ten children. This meeting sparked a love affair that lasted over a decade, destroying Dickens's marriage and ending with Nelly's near-disappearance from the public record. In this remarkable work of biography, Claire Tomalin rescues Nelly from obscurity, not only returning the neglected actress to her rightful place in history, but also giving us a compelling and truthful account of the great Victorian novelist. Through Dickens's diaries, correspondence, address books, and photographs, Tomalin is able to reconstruct the relationship between Charles and Nelly, bringing it to vivid life. The result is a riveting literary detective story—and a portrait of a singular woman.

    McNamara's controversial book tells the inside and personal story of America's descent into Vietnam from a unique point of view, and is one of the most enlightening books about government ever written. This new edition features a new Foreword by McNamara. of photos. (Military History)

    As soon as men began writing they made Helen of Troy their subject. For close to 3000 years she's been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty & a reminder of the terrible power beauty can wield. Because of her double marriage to the Greek king Menelaus & the Trojan prince Paris, Helen was held responsible for enmity between East & West. For millennia she's been viewed as an agent of extermination. But who was she? Helen exists in many guises: a matriarch from the Heroic Age who ruled over one of the most fertile areas of the Mycenaean world; Helen of Sparta, the focus of a cult that conflated the heroine with a pre-Greek fertility goddess; the home-wrecker of the Iliad; the bitch-whore of Greek tragedy; the pin-up of Romantic artists. Focusing on the “real” Helen–-a flesh-&-blood aristocrat from the Greek Bronze Age–-Hughes reconstructs the life context of this prehistoric princess. Thru the eyes of a young Mycenaean woman, she examines the physical, historical & cultural traces that Helen has left on locations in Greece, N. Africa & Asia Minor. This book unpacks the facts & myths surrounding one of the most enigmatic & notorious figures of all time.IllustrationsText AcknowledgementsMapsTimelineDramatis PersonaeFamily TreesForeword & AcknowledgementsIntroductionCherchez la femmeAn evil destiny Helen-hunting Goddess, princess, whore1. Helen's birth in pre-historyA dangerous landscapeA rape, a birthThe lost citadelThe MycenaeansThe pre-historic princess2. The land of beautiful womenThe rape of 'fair Hellen'Sparte kalligynaikaTender-eyed girls 3. The world's desireA trophy for heroes The kingmaker A royal wedding4. KourotrophosHermione A welcome burdenHelen, high priestessLa belle Hélène 5. A lover's gameThe golden apple Bearing gifts Alexander Helenam RapuitThe female of the species is more deadly than the male6. Eros & ErisHelen the whoreThe pain of AphroditeThe sea's foaming lanes7. Troy beckonsEast is east & west is westThe fair Troad The topless towers of IliumThe golden houses of the eastA fleet sets sail8. Troy besiegedHelen, destroyer of citiesDeath's dark cloud A beautiful death, Kalos ThanatosThe fall of Troy 9. Immortal HelenHome to Sparta The death of a queenThe age of heroes ends'Fragrant treasuries' The daughter of the ocean10. The face that launched a thousand shipsHelen in AthensHelen lost & Helen foundHelen, Homer & the chances of survivalVeyn fablesHelen of Troy & the bad SamaritanPerpulchra, more than beautifulDancing with the devilHelen's nemesisAppendicesThe Minotaur's islandLa ParisienneWomen of stone & clay & bronzeElemental Helen, she-gods & she-devilsRoyal purple, the color of congealed bloodEpilogue: Myth, history & historiaAbbreviationsNotesBibliographyIndex

    But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation, she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact--in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans.As Mayor shows, the Greeks and Romans were well aware that a different breed of creatures once inhabited their lands. They frequently encountered the fossilized bones of these primeval beings, and they developed sophisticated concepts to explain the fossil evidence, concepts that were expressed in mythological stories. The legend of the gold-guarding griffin, for example, sprang from tales first told by Scythian gold-miners, who, passing through the Gobi Desert at the foot of the Altai Mountains, encountered the skeletons of Protoceratops and other dinosaurs that littered the ground.Like their modern counterparts, the ancient fossil hunters collected and measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric creatures and to explain their extinction. Long thought to be fantasy, the remarkably detailed and perceptive Greek and Roman accounts of giant bone finds were actually based on solid paleontological facts. By reading these neglected narratives for the first time in the light of modern scientific discoveries, Adrienne Mayor illuminates a lost world of ancient paleontology. As Peter Dodson writes in his Foreword, "Paleontologists, classicists, and historians as well as natural history buffs will read this book with the greatest of delight--surprises abound."

    Following Kaiser Wilhelm's political career from his youth at the Hohenzollern court through the turbulent peacetime decades of the Wilhelmine era into global war and exile, the book presents a new interpretation of this controversial monarch and assesses the impact on Germany of his forty-year reign.

    She was just three years old.      She remained in the orphanage until the age of 16, subjected to cruelty and neglect, and starved of love and affection. One of her closest friends was taken away to an asylum after her spirit was broken by repeated beatings, and Maureen herself faced a constant battle against despair. It was an environment from which no one emerged unscathed.      Throughout these tormented years, Maureen dreamed only of escape, and when she was contacted again by her mammy she believed all her dreams were about to come true. Life in the outside world brought its own challenges, however, and Maureen was thrown into turmoil when she discovered that the truth about her past was more murky than she had ever realised.      Annie's Girl stands apart as a poignant testimony to the resilience of the human heart. This touching and evocative memoir is the incredible story of an illegitimate industrial-school survivor's profound struggle to overcome a shame-filled past and solve the mystery of her origins.

    To the IRA, he was a trusted intelligence officer and an integral member of an active-service unit. To the British Government, however, he was known only as 'Agent Carol'. McGartland is credited by British Intelligence with having saved the lives of at least fifty people. Working within the ruthless network of the IRA, every time he tipped off the authorities, he saved a life, but with each success came a higher risk of detection. He continued to pass on life-saving information until, one day, his cover was blown. . .

    While she is one of the most famous figures in history, the legendary Egyptian queen remains, in many ways, an enigma. In this mesmerizing history, Alberto Angela offers a fresh and dynamic portrait of this extraordinary ruler, revealing a strikingly modern woman born in an ancient era and skilled in the art of diplomacy and war, who would conquer the heart of a general—Marc Antony—and Rome itself.Cleopatra focuses on a twenty-year period that marked a sweeping change in Roman history, beginning with the assassination of Julius Caesar that led to the end of the Republic, and ending with the suicides of Antony and Cleopatra and the birth of the Augustan Empire. Angela brings the people, stories, customs, and traditions of this fascinating period alive as he transports us to the chaotic streets of the capital of the ancient world, the exotic port of Alexandria in Egypt, and to the bloody battlefields where an empire was won and lost. Meticulously researched and rich with vivid detail, this sweeping history, reminiscent of the works of Simon Schama, Mary Beard’s SPQR, and Tom Holland’s Rubicon, recreates this remarkable era and the woman at its turbulent center.

    Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

    . . whom dreamers find always at the end of their dreams."-- Theophile Gautier, 1845Arrestingly beautiful and fiercely intelligent, Cleopatra VII of Egypt was barely more than a teenager when she inherited the richest empire in the world--one that stretched from the scorching deserts of lower Egypt to the shining Mediterranean metropolis of Alexandria, with its famed libraries, storehouses, and treasuries. Imperiled at every turn by court conspiracies and Roman treachery, the young queen was forced to flee Alexandria and live in exile while a foreign army overran her city and her own siblings plotted her downfall. With nothing to lose, Cleopatra brazenly sought a partnership with the only man who could secure Egypt's safety: Julius Caesar, a wily politician and battle-hardened general with a weakness for women. The result was a passionate love affair that scandalized Rome and thrust Cleopatra into the glittering but deadly world of imperial intrigue and warfare-- a world that she would mesmerize and manipulate even after Caesar was gone.At the height of her power and fame, Cleopatra fell in love with Caesar's protégé and successor, Marc Antony, a handsome general known as much for his drunken hedonism as for his victories in  battle. Brash, irresistible, and fatally unreliable, Antony's once-strong hold on the Roman Empire was slipping fast, and with it slipped Cleopatra's fortunes. When the tide had finally, irrevocably turned against her, the proud queen plotted a last, spectacular maneuver that was to save her children, her empire, and her place in the pantheon of gods. Colin Falconer's bold, sensuous prose takes the reader inside the walls of Alexandria's great palaces and into Cleopatra's very heart, creating a vivid portrait of an unforgettable woman who thrived and triumphed in a world ruled by men. This is the story of a legendary woman's most glorious time, a story that blazes through thousands of years of history to capture the imagination of readers today.From the Hardcover edition.

    After conquering the Roman city of Saguntum, Hannibal wages his campaign through the outposts of the empire, shrewdly befriending peoples disillusioned by Rome and, with dazzling tactics, outwitting the opponents who believe the land route he has chosen is impossible. Yet Hannibal's armies must take brutal losses as they pass through the Pyrenees mountains, forge the Rhone river, and make a winter crossing of the Alps before descending to the great tests at Cannae and Rome itself. David Anthony Durham draws a brilliant and complex Hannibal out of the scant historical record?sharp, sure-footed, as nimble among rivals as on the battlefield, yet one who misses his family and longs to see his son grow to manhood. Whether portraying the deliberations of a general or the calculations of a common soldier, vast multilayered scenes of battle or moments of introspection when loss seems imminent, Durham brings history alive.

    She sees the footprints of early humans fossilised in the soft mud of an estuary alongside the scattered pockmarks made by rain falling eight thousand years ago. She visits a cave where the remnants of a Neanderthal meal have turned to stone. In Denmark she sits beside Tollund Man who, despite having lain in a peat bog since the start of the Bronze Age, seems to be about to wake from a dream...'This book is a wonder' Adam Nicolson, Spectator'A clairvoyant and poetic conversation with the past' Antony Gormley

    Then Jan was left alone to survive in the dangerous jungle. An inspiring story.

    At 16, he was already a ranking member in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a London-based Islamist group. He quickly rose through the ranks to become a top recruiter, a charismatic spokesman for the cause of uniting Islam’s political power across the world. Nawaz was setting up satellite groups in Pakistan, Denmark, and Egypt when he was rounded up in the aftermath of 9/11 along with many other radical Muslims. He was sent to an Egyptian prison where he was, fortuitously, jailed along with the assassins of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The 20 years in prison had changed the assassins’ views on Islam and violence; Maajid went into prison preaching to them about the Islamist cause, but the lessons ended up going the other way. He came out of prison four years later completely changed, convinced that his entire belief system had been wrong, and determined to do something about it.He met with activists and heads of state, built a network, and started a foundation, Quilliam, to combat the rising Islamist tide in Europe and elsewhere, using his intimate knowledge of recruitment tactics in order to reverse extremism and persuade Muslims that the ‘narrative’ used to recruit them (that the West is evil and the cause of all of Muslim suffering), is false. Radical, first published in the UK, is a fascinating and important look into one man's journey out of extremism and into something else entirely.This U.S. edition contains a "Preface for US readers" and a new, updated epilogue.