Warning: This book could change your ideas about history for ever!!Do you know why the Celts got the best girls? Or who had his portrait painted after he was dead? And have you any idea who planned the first Channel Tunnel? From the dawn of civilization to the end of the Second World War, it's all here in the factually accurate and hilariously funny Very Bloody History of Britain.Bizarre, barmy and almost beyond belief, you've never had a history lesson like it!

    You will be astonished to learn about some of the events that have occurred! Here is a Sneak Peek of What you will Learn: - Ancient History - Asian History - European and Russian History - American History - Australian History - World Wars I & II, and the Vietnam War - And much, much, more Here is what other readers say about this book: "This book is packed with really important information about the world's history." "I was surprised how much I learned from this. I really like how everything is laid out, it makes it very easy to follow. I especially like the section on Native Americans" "I couldn't put this book down, and not because I'm a nerdy avid reader (I am) but because it's filled with so much about our world history without the facts jumping all over the place like some history books I've read." "I am highly impressed by the content of this book and I would recommend this to all my colleagues as well" Subjects include: Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, The Roman Empire, Constantine and Christianity, India, Ancient Korea, Chinese Dynasties, Napoleonic Europe, Foundation of USA, The 1812 War, Australia and Wars, World War I, World War II, The Ottoman Empire, Greece and North Africa, The Diem Regime, Pearl Harbor and much more! All Continents As Known Today Are Covered: North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Take action and get this book now!

    Comprehensive and engaging, The Story of Ireland is an eye-opening account of a nation that has long been shaped by forces beyond its coasts.The Story of Ireland re-examines Irish history, challenging the accepted stories and long-held myths associated with Ireland. Transporting readers to the Ireland of the past, beginning with the first settlement in A.D. 433, this is a sweeping and compelling history of one of the world's most dynamic nations. Hegarty examines how world events, including Europe's 16th century religious wars, the French and American revolutions, and Ireland's policy of neutrality during World War II, have shaped the country over the course of its long and fascinating history. With an up-to-date afterword that details the present state of affairs in Ireland, this is an essential text for readers who are fascinated by current events, politics, and history.Spanning Irish history from its earliest inhabitants to the country's current financial crisis, The Story of Ireland is an epic and brilliant re-telling of Ireland's history from a new point of view.

    Its causes spanned many centuries; its consequences were as extraordinary as the battle itself.On September 9, 1513, the vicious rivalry between the young Henry VIII of England and his charismatic brother-in-law, James IV of Scotland, ended in violence at Flodden Field in the north of England. It was the inevitable climax to years of mounting personal and political tension through which James bravely asserted Scotland's independence and Henry demanded its obedience.In Fatal Rivalry, George Goodwin, the best-selling author of Fatal Colours, captures the vibrant Renaissance splendor of the royal courts of England and Scotland, with their unprecedented wealth, innovation, and artistic expression. He shows how the wily Henry VII, far from the miser king of tradition, spent vast sums to secure his throne and elevate the monarchy to a new standard of magnificence among the courts of Europe. He demonstrates how James IV competed with the elder Henry, even claiming that Arthurian legend supported a separate Scottish identity. Such rivalry served as a substitute for war--until Henry VIII's belligerence forced the real thing.As England and Scotland scheme toward their biggest-ever battle, Goodwin deploys a fascinating and treacherous cast of characters: maneuvering ministers, cynical foreign allies, conspiring cardinals, and contrasting queens in Katherine of Aragon and Margaret Tudor.Finally, at Flodden on September 9, 1513, King James seems poised for the crushing victory that will confirm him as Scotland's greatest king and--if an old military foe proves unable to stop him--put all of Britain in his grasp.Five hundred years after this decisive battle, Fatal Rivalry combines original sources and modern scholarship to re-create the royal drama, the military might, and the world in transition that created this bitter conflict.

    But in this thought-provoking collection, twenty-eight writers and scholars give engaging, often passionate accounts of their own nation’s history. The countries have been selected to represent every continent and every type of state: large and small; mature democracies and religious autocracies; states that have existed for thousands of years and those born as recently as the twentieth century. Together they contain two-thirds of the world’s population. In the United States, for example, the myth of the nation’s “historylessness” remains strong, but in China history is seen to play a crucial role in legitimizing three thousand years of imperial authority. “History wars” over the content of textbooks rage in countries as diverse as Australia, Russia, and Japan. Some countries, such as Iran or Egypt, are blessed—or cursed—with a glorious ancient history that the present cannot equal; others, such as Germany, must find ways of approaching and reconciling the pain of the recent past.

    International in scope, this series of non-fiction trade paperbacks offers books that explore the lives, customs and thoughts of peoples and cultures around the world.

    The seeds of Witold Rybczynski's elegant and illuminating new book were sown by The New York Times, whose editors asked him to write an essay identifying "the best tool of the millennium". The award-winning author of Home: A Short History of an Idea and, most recently, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century, Rybczynski once built a house using only hand tools. His intimate knowledge of the toolbox, both its contents and its history, serves him beautifully on his quest.One Good Turn is a story starring Archimedes, who invented the water screw and introduced the helix, and Leonardo, who sketched a machine for carving wood screws. It is a story of mechanical discovery and genius that takes readers from Ancient Greece to Victorian Glasgow, from weapons design in the Italian Renaissance to car design in the age of American industry. Rybczynski writes an ode to the screw, without which there would be no telescope, no microscope, in short, no enlightenment science. The screwdriver, perhaps the last hand tool in a world gone cyber, represents nothing less than the triumph of precision. One of our finest cultural and architectural historians, Rybczynski renders a graceful, original, and engaging portrait of the tool that changed the course of civilization.

    People knew the basics: men and women had sex, and sometimes babies followed. But beyond that the origins of life were a colossal mystery. The Seeds of Life is the remarkable and rollicking story of how a series of blundering geniuses and brilliant amateurs struggled for two centuries to discover where, exactly, babies come from. Taking a page from investigative thrillers, acclaimed science writer Edward Dolnick looks to these early scientists as if they were detectives hot on the trail of a bedeviling and urgent mystery. These strange searchers included an Italian surgeon using shark teeth to prove that female reproductive organs were not 'failed' male genitalia, and a Catholic priest who designed ingenious miniature pants to prove that frogs required semen to fertilize their eggs. A witty and rousing history of science, The Seeds of Life presents our greatest scientists struggling-against their perceptions, their religious beliefs, and their deep-seated prejudices-to uncover how and where we come from.

    Our fortunes were once founded on sheep, and this book tells a story of wool and money and history, of merchants and farmers and shepherds, of English yeomen and how they got their freedom, and above all, of the soil. Sheep have helped define our culture and topography, impacting on everything from accent and idiom, architecture, roads and waterways, to social progression and wealth. With his eye for the idiosyncratic, Philip meets the native breeds that thrive in this country; he tells stories about each breed, meets their shepherds and owners, learns about their past - and confronts the present realities of sheep farming. Along the way, Philip meets the people of the countryside and their many professions: the mole-catchers, the stick-makers, the tobacco-twisters and clog-wrights. He explores this artisan heritage as he re-discovers the countryside, and finds a lifestyle parallel to modern existence, struggling to remain unchanged - and at its heart, always sheep.

    Told through an examination of animal and plant life today - with occasional juxtapositions of extinct fossil forms to reveal the origin of living creatures - "Life on Earth" is an astonishing pageant of life, with a cast of characters drawn from the whole range of living animals the world over. Attenborough's perceptive, dynamic approach to the evolution of some four million species of living organisms that populate the planet is to trace the most significant thread in the history of each major group. He then proceeds to explain from the evidence of living representatives and fossil remains why certain animals adapted and survived, evolved to more complex and "higher" forms of life, while others, by some inherent limitation imposed by their physiology or structure, failed and became extinct. "Life on Earth" is a book of wonders. A model of clarity and ease as a guide, Attenborough takes the reader around the world with him into jungles where orchids have petals that "impersonate" wasps to attract pollinating insects; to Australia, where honeypot ants force feed nectar to workers of a special caste, then hang them up by their forelegs like living storage jars; to remote mountains in Japan where little monkeys called macaques have learned to combat the winter snows by bathing in hot volcanic springs.

    His wife, Marguerite, has accused squire Jacques Le Gris of rape. A deadlocked court decrees a “trial by combat” between the two men that also leaves Marguerite’s fate in the balance. For if her husband loses the duel, she will be put to death as a false accuser. While enemy troops pillage the land, and rebellion and plague threaten the lives of all, Carrouges and Le Gris meet in full armor on a walled field in Paris. What follows is a fierce duel, the final one sanctioned by governing powers, before a massive crowd that includes the teenage King Charles VI, during which both combatants are wounded—but only one fatally.Based on extensive research in Normandy and Paris, THE LAST DUEL brings to life a colorful, turbulent age and three unforgettable characters caught in a fatal triangle of crime, scandal, and revenge. THE LAST DUEL is at once a moving human drama, a captivating true crime story, and an engrossing work of historical intrigue with themes that echo powerfully centuries later.

    And survival is never a given. Somehow, a blind, defenseless tiger kitten must evolve into a deadly, efficient predator; a chimp must learn to distinguish edible plants from lethal poisons; a baby buffalo must be able to pick its mother out of a herd of hundreds. Contrary to common belief, not everything is "hardwired" -- or instinctual -- in the animal kingdom. Many skills a wild animal needs to thrive, to grow, to be what nature intended, must be developed through play, painstaking teaching, and often treacherous trial and error. The coming-of-age processes of the myriad creatures of plain, forest, ocean, and jungle are truly fascinating and often astonishing natural events.In Becoming a Tiger, Susan McCarthy, co-author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller When Elephants Weep, offers readers an in-depth look into the amazing ways baby animals learn not only about themselves, but about their world and ours -- and how to survive in both. Based on extensive scientific research done in the lab, in controlled "natural" settings, as well as in the wild, her findings provide stunning new insights into the lives and development of Earth's nonhuman inhabitants -- not only tigers, but lions, bears, bats, rats, birds, dolphins, whales, apes, elephants, and dozens of other species.Sharing stories and discoveries at once captivating, funny, breathtaking, provocative, and heartwarming, Susan McCarthy carries us on a remarkable journey into untamed places, immersing us in the fascinating, complex, and hitherto unimagined societies and cultures of the beasts and birds. Along the way she shines a brilliant new light on subjects scientists, biologists, and zoologists have only begun to explore, revealing startling truths about the behavior, and sometimes humanlike foibles, of creatures great and small.Warm, informative, and beautifully written, Becoming a Tiger is an enthralling reading experience for animal lovers everywhere. In the transformation tales of playful pups, big-footed cubs, and scrawny chicks becoming deadly hunters, able foragers, and deft nest-builders are valuable and enriching life lessons for members of our own inquisitive, ever-developing species.

    But the ravens' past has far more high drama. From the plains of the North American Indians to the arctic tundra, all the way to the Tower of London, they have been symbols of cruelty, of survival through adversity, and a loveable icon. Boria Sax shows how our attitudes to the raven and to the natural world have changed enormously over the centuries. By describing the distinct place of this special bird in Western culture, he shows how blurred the lines between myth and history can be. This is a unique and brilliantly readable story of the entwined lives of people and animals.

    Through classical art, traditional proverbs, and superb research, this exquisitely designed volume takes a look back into the origins and history of these notorious “shadow warriors.” Explore their traditions and guiding philosophy, their weapons and martial-arts skills, their mystique as stealthy black-clad assassins, and their enduring appeal as icons of popular culture. A timeline goes back beyond even the very first ninjalike figure, and follows the movement right through the 1800s, when the final ninja mission ever was recorded: the attempt to infiltrate Commodore Perry’s “black ships” off Japan.

    Now, in this fully illustrated book, one hundred of the world's most important military confrontations are described in detail.100 Decisive Battles gives us the facts about the battle and also explains where it fits in to the scope of world history.In each entry we are given the name and date of the battle, the commanders, the size of the opposing forces, and casualties. An account of the battle plan and the military action are strategically discussed, and each description closes with a valuable consideration of how history was affected by theoutcome of the conflict. Among the battles presented are the Battle of Thymbra (546 BC), the Battle of Chalons (451 AD), the Battle of Cajamarca (1532), the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954), and the Tet Offensive (1968). Accompanying maps and sidebars help further orient us with each military action.Global in scope, with excellent coverage of American, Central American, European, Asian, and Middle Eastern battles, and with its stirring accounts of familiar battles and many lesser known military conflicts, 100 Decisive Battles is essential reading for military buffs and anyone interested in howthe modern world came to be.