Book picks similar to
The Celtic Place-Names of Scotland by William J. Watson
history
anthropology-archaeology
it-wikipedia
scottish-history
The Unstoppable Keeper
Lutz Pfannenstiel - 2009
A massive bestseller in Germany, this astonishing, fascinating and at times hilarious book relates a football career in which Lutz: Became the only person to have played professional football in all FIFA Confederations Was wrongly jailed for match fixing in Singapore spending 101 days in horrific conditions Signed for 25 teams (including Notts Forest, Wimbledon's Crazy Gang and Calgary) Stopped breathing three times after his heart stopped during a game Turned down mighty Bayern Munich to play in Malaysia Coached teams in such exotic locations as Norway, Namibia, Armenia and Cuba Kidnapped a Penguin! All this because he simply loved playing football and because, quite simply, goalkeepers are mad!"
Thicker Than Water
Cal Flyn - 2016
Cutting paths through the alien harshness of the Australian frontier, McMillan became a pioneer to be forever mythologised in the statues and landmarks that bore his name. He was also Cal Flyn’s great-great-great-uncle. Inspired by this glimmer of an ancestral greatness, Flyn followed in his footsteps to Australia, where her investigations forced her to confront dark and horrifying family secrets. She discovered that McMillan and his peers were responsible for a series of assaults on indigenous peoples so ferocious that the sites would ever after be synonymous with bloodshed: Skull Creek, Boney Point, Slaughterhouse Gully. McMillan too had a new name: the Butcher of Gippsland.Driven to piece together his story and confront her own history, Flyn looks for answers: How could a man lauded for his generosity and integrity commit such terrible acts? How could a man who had witnessed the horror of Highlanders cleared from their lands then massacre and ‘clear’ indigenous people on the other side of the world? How can whole societies come to be overlooked and forgotten? Should today's generation atone for their ancestors' sins? Blending memoir, history and travel, Thicker Than Water evokes the startlingly beautiful wilderness of the Highlands, the desolate bush of Victoria and the reverberations on one from the other. A tale of blood and bloodlines, it is a powerful, personal journey into dark family history, intergenerational grief and the inherited guilt that we all carry with us.
The Ogre: Biography of a mountain and the dramatic story of the first ascent
Doug K. Scott - 2017
Few are both.On the afternoon of 13 July 1977, having become the first climbers to reach the summit of the Ogre, Doug Scott and Chris Bonington began their long descent. In the minutes that followed, any feeling of success from their achievement would be overwhelmed by the start of a desperate fight for survival. And things would only get worse.Rising to over 7,000 metres in the centre of the Karakoram, the Ogre – Baintha Brakk – is notorious in mountaineering circles as one of the most difficult mountains to climb. First summited by Scott and Bonington in 1977 – on expedition with Paul ‘Tut’ Braithwaite, Nick Estcourt, Clive Rowland and Mo Anthoine – it waited almost twenty-four years for a second ascent, and a further eleven years for a third. The Ogre, by legendary mountaineer Doug Scott, is a two-part biography of this enigmatic peak: in the first part, Scott has painstakingly researched the geography and history of the mountain; part two is the long overdue and very personal account of his and Bonington’s first ascent and their dramatic week-long descent on which Scott suffered two broken legs and Bonington smashed ribs. Using newly discovered diaries, letters and audio tapes, it tells of the heroic and selfless roles played by Clive Rowland and Mo Anthoine. When the desperate climbers finally made it back to base camp, they were to find it abandoned – and themselves still a long way from safety.The Ogre is undoubtedly one of the greatest adventure stories of all time.
Philadelphia: A 300-Year History
Russell F. Weigley - 1982
In this, the definitive comprehensive history of Philadelphia, the reader will discover a rich and colorful portrait of one of America's most vital, interesting, and illustrious cities.
Glacial Lake Missoula: And Its Humongous Flood
David D. Alt - 2001
Harlen Bretz walked the dry scabland channels of eastern Washington in the 1920s, it dawned on him that he was viewing a landscape sculpted by water. Lots of water. A flood of catastrophic proportions. Glacial Lake Missoula and Its Humongous Floods tells the gripping tale of a huge Ice Age lake that drained suddenly--not just once but repeatedly--and reshaped the landscape of the Northwest. The narrative follows the path of the floodwaters as they raged from western Montana across the Idaho Panhandle, then scoured through eastern Washington and down the Columbia Gorge to the Pacific Ocean. This is also the story of geologists grappling with scientific controversy--"of how personalities, pride, and prejudice sometimes superseded scientific evidence."
The British in India: A Social History of the Raj
David Gilmour - 2018
David Gilmour captures the substance and texture of their work, home, and social lives, and illustrates how these transformed across the several centuries of British presence and rule in the subcontinent, from the East India Company's first trading station in 1615 to the twilight of the Raj and Partition and Independence in 1947. He takes us through remote hill stations, bustling coastal ports, opulent palaces, regimented cantonments, and dense jungles, revealing the country as seen through British eyes, and wittily reveling in all the particular concerns and contradictions that were a consequence of that limited perspective. The British in India is a breathtaking accomplishment, a vivid and balanced history written with brio, elegance, and erudition.
Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
James McGrath Morris - 2014
In 1892, America was on the verge of another civil war, this one over industrial slavery. It was the era of robber barons, and none was more reviled for his harsh treatment of workers than industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The deadly Homestead Steel Strike that summer had left Frick with blood on his hands, and two young, impassioned radicals thought he should pay for his crimes. Answering the utopian call of a world without government, Alexander Berkman and his lover, Emma Goldman, set out for revenge in the name of the proletariat. Theirs is the story of revolution by murder. James McGrath Morris is a biographer and writer of narrative nonfiction. His books include Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne’s Journey Through the Civil Rights Revolution (forthcoming); Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power; The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism; and Jailhouse Journalism: The Fourth Estate Behind Bars. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is currently writing a book about the friendship between writers Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos. Cover design by Adil Dara Kim.