Book picks similar to
Lost Worlds by Leonard Cottrell


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Deadly Force: The True Story of How a Badge Can Become a License to Kill


Lawrence O'Donnell - 1983
    

A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar - A Contribution to the History of India


Robert Sewell - 1900
    He did extensive work on the history of the Vijayanagara Empire, particularly the fall of Hampi, the empire's capital. He translated The Vijayanagar Empire as Seen by Domingo Paes and Fernao Nuniz - described as an eyewitness account of Portuguese travellers to India in the 16th century and report on the Vijayanagar Empire. His other works include: Analytical History of India (1870), Eclipses of the Moon in India (1878), Antiquarian Remains in Presidency of Madras (1882), A Sketch of the Dynasties of S. India (1883), South Indian Chronological Tables (1889) and The Indian Calendar (with S. B. Dikshit) (1896).

A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Fiction


Suzette Field - 2012
    And writers love to attend and document these occasions. The party is a useful literary device, not only for social commentary and satire but also as an occasion where characters can meet, fall in and out of love, or even get murdered.A Curious Invitation is a humorous and informative guide to literature's most memorable parties. Some of these parties are depictions of real events, like the Duchess of Richmond's ball on the eve of battle with Napoleon in Thackeray's Vanity Fair; others draw on the authors' experience of the society they lived in, such as Lady Metroland's party in Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies; while others come straight from the writer's bizarre imagination, like Douglas Adams' flying party above an unknown planet from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.Witty, entertaining, and full of fabulous detail, A Curious Invitation offers readers the chance to crash some of the great parties in literary history.

The Great Mistake


Mary Roberts Rinehart - 1940
     In an elaborate house known as the Cloisters, Maud Wainwright rules supreme. The queen of society in the small town of Beverly, she has a table long enough to seat one hundred, and she keeps an iron grip on the guest list. Her right-hand woman is Pat Abbott, a local girl who is beautiful, innocent, and kind. Pat has no idea how cutthroat high society can be, but she’s about to get a deadly first lesson.   Pat has fallen head over heels in love with Maud’s son, Tony, a clever young rake with a single flaw: his vicious, gold-digging wife. At the same time that she is dangerously infatuated with a married man, Pat’s world is turned upside down by a series of attacks on the estate—and a truly shocking murder. To save Tony and Maud, Pat must find the killer. But the list of suspects is as long as one of Maud’s guest lists: When a woman has room at her table for one hundred friends, she’ll have more than her share of enemies.   “Anyone who aspires to become a writer,” said the New York Times, “could not do better than to study carefully the methods of Mary Roberts Rinehart.” The Great Mistake is a classic example of the golden age murder mystery at its best.

Starling


Virginia Taylor - 2015
    But when she’s offered a year’s wages to temporarily pose as a wealthy man’s bride, she suspects ulterior motives. She can’t lose the chance to open her own shop, but she won’t be any man’s lover, not even handsome, infuriating Alisdair Seymour’s…To prevent his visiting sister from parading potential brides in front of him, Alisdair has decided to present a fake wife. He lost his heart once, and had it broken—he doesn’t intend to do it again. But stubborn, spirited Starling is more alluring than he bargained for, and Alisdair will risk everything he has to prove his love is true…Set against the sweeping backdrop of 1866 South Australia, Starling is a novel of cherished dreams and powerful desires, and the young woman bold enough to claim them both…74,855 Words

Ocean Life in the Old Sailing Ship Days


John D. Whidden - 2009
    Whidden started out at sea in 1834, at the age of twelve, and did not retire until 1870. This is his account of over a quarter-century spent on the high seas. Orphaned at five, nothing held Whidden back from embarking on sea life seven years later. Serving as an apprentice, he quickly proved his worth, and earned himself a mate’s position by his early twenties. Graduating to third, second and first office, he ended his career in command of, and having part-ownership of his own vessel. This memoir, Ocean Life in the Old Sailing Ship Days, records a series of real events, from his childhood impressions of rough and ready seamen, to his thrilling and brutal experiences of war. His travels saw him spanning the world, with stops at major ports such as Honolulu, Buenos Aires, Calcutta, and Liverpool. His life spans the changes in the shipping industry over the 19th and into the 20th century. During the Civil War, Whidden was heavily involved in profitable island trading in the Bahamas to elude Confederate sailors. However, shortly after the close of the war, in 1870, Whidden left sailing as he found it being overtaken by foreign interests. John D. Whidden (1832-1911) wrote Ocean Life in the Old Sailing Days in 1908, partly as a memoir, but also to offer a snippet of the “old sailing ship days” before major changes occurred to its business environment, fundamentally changing its nature. It is a classic account of a different way of life, which will appeal to both sailing enthusiasts and historians alike.

Sicily: Three Thousand Years of Human History


Sandra Benjamin - 2006
    Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Goths, Byzantines, Muslims, Normans, Hohenstaufens, Spaniards, Bourbons, the Savoy Kingdom of Italy and the modern era have all held sway, and left lasting influences on the island’s culture and architecture. And yet no contemporary book tells the story of Sicily in a single volume for the general reader. Tourists, armchair travelers, and historians will all delight in this fluid narrative that can be read straight through, dipped into over time, or used as a reference guide to each period in Sicily’s fascinating tale.It is a general history, an account of welfare and warfare. Emigration of people from Sicily often overshadows the importance of the people who immigrated to the island through the centuries. Immigrants have included several who became Sicily’s rulers, along with Jews, Ligurians, and Albanians. All are ancestors of modern Sicilians. Sicily’s character has also been determined by what passed it by: events that affected Europe generally, namely the Crusades and Columbus’s discovery of the Americas, had remarkably little influence on Italy’s most famous island. Maps, biographical notes, suggestions for further reading, a glossary, pronunciation keys, and much more make this book as essential as it is enjoyable.

Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory


James Oliver Horton - 2006
    memory. In recent years, the culture wars over the way that slavery is remembered and taught have reached a new crescendo. From the argument about the display of the Confederate flag over the state house in Columbia, South Carolina, to the dispute over Thomas Jefferson's relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and the ongoing debates about reparations, the questions grow ever more urgent and more difficult.Edited by noted historians James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, this collection explores current controversies and offers a bracing analysis of how people remember their past and how the lessons they draw influence American politics and culture today. Bringing together some of the nation's most respected historians, including Ira Berlin, David W. Blight, and Gary B. Nash, this is a major contribution to the unsettling but crucial debate about the significance of slavery and its meaning for racial reconciliation.Contributors: Ira Berlin, University of MarylandDavid W. Blight, Yale UniversityJames Oliver Horton, George Washington UniversityLois E. Horton, George Mason UniversityBruce Levine, University of IllinoisEdward T. Linenthal, University of Wisconsin-OshkoshJoanne Melish, University of KentuckyGary B. Nash, University of California, Los AngelesDwight T. Pitcaithley, New Mexico State UniversityMarie Tyler-McGraw, Washington, D.C.John Michael Vlach, George Washington University

A Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles through Islamic Africa


Steve Kemper - 2012
    One by one his companions died, but he carried on alone, eventually reaching the fabled city of gold, Timbuktu. His five-and-a-half-year, 10,000-mile adventure ranks among the greatest journeys in the annals of exploration, and his discoveries are considered indispensable by modern scholars of Africa.Yet because of shifting politics, European preconceptions about Africa, and his own thorny personality, Barth has been almost forgotten. The general public has never heard of him, his epic journey, or his still-pertinent observations about Africa and Islam; and his monumental five-volume Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa is rare even in libraries. Though he made his journey for the British government, he has never had a biography in English. Barth and his achievements have fallen through a crack in history.

My Kingdom for a Horse: The War of the Roses (Very, Very Short History of England)


Ed West - 2018
    Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, not to mention the smash-hit TV show Game of Thrones, the British civil war of 1455 to 1485 has inspired writers more than any other. Ed West's My Kingdom for a Horse illuminates the bloody war fought for thirty long years between the descendants of King Edward III in a battle for the throne. Named after the emblems used by the two leading families, the Houses of York and Lancaster, the title of the conflict gives it a romantic feel that probably wasn't as apparent to those on the battlefield having swords shoved into their eyes. And, for all the lovely heraldry and glamorous costumes of the era, the war saw the complete breakdown of the medieval code of chivalry in which prisoners were spared, which makes it even better drama. In 1460-61 alone, twelve noblemen were killed in the field and six were beheaded off it, removing a third of the English peerage. Written in the spirit of a black comedy, My Kingdom for a Horse is an ideal introduction for anyone interested in one of history's most insane wars. Featuring some of history's most infamous figures, including the insane King Henry VI, whose madness triggered the breakdown, and the wicked Richard III, who murdered his young nephews to take the throne, this fifth entry in West's A Very, Very Short History of England series is a must for fans of British history.

A Brief History of Venice


Elizabeth Horodowich - 2009
    Elizabeth Horodowich, one of the leading historians of the city, tells the whole story, showing that Venice, alongside Florence and Rome, was one of the great Renaissance capitals. The book will also investigate the history of Venice as a multicultural trading city where Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived together at the crossroads between East and West. The narrative runs all the way to the present to the current problems with the sinking island.

Let Me Tell You a Story: A Memoir of a Wartime Childhood


Renata Calverley - 2013
    Przemysl, Poland. No one has explained to three-year-old Renatka what war is. She knows her Tatus, a doctor, is away with the Polish Army, that her beautiful Mamusia is no longer allowed to work at the university, and that their frequent visitors-among them Great Aunt Zuzia and Uncle Julek with their gifts of melon and clothes-have stopped appearing. One morning Mamusia comes home with little yellow six-pointed stars for them to wear. Renatka thinks they will keep her family safe.In June of 1942, soldiers in gray-green uniforms take Renata, Mamusia, and grandmother Babcia to the Ghetto where they are crammed into one room with other frightened families. The adults are forced to work long hours at the factory and to survive on next to no food. One day Mamusia and Babcia do not return from their shifts. Six years old and utterly alone, Renata is passed from place to place and survives through the willingness of ordinary people to take the most deadly risks. Her unlikely blonde hair and blue eyes and other twists of fate save her life but stories become her salvation. Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales transport her to an enchanted world; David Copperfield helps her cope on her own; and she longs for the family in Swallows and Amazons. A chronicle of the horrors of war, Let Me Tell You a Story is a powerful and moving memoir of growing up in a disturbing world, and of the magical discovery of books.

The Thirteen Colonies


Louis B. Wright - 2014
    The representatives of the thirteen colonies who approved the Declaration of Independence in 1776 charted a collision course, aware of the obstacles in their path and the risks they were taking. The events that led to their decision took place over a period of nearly 300 years. Looking back, the wonder is that it culminated so quickly. For a century after its discovery, the New World was little more than a lode to be mined by adventurers seeking profits. It wasn't until the end of the sixteenth century that serious efforts were made to establish permanent colonies. Even then, the perils of the journey and threats of starvation inhibited settlement. But settlers gradually came, spurred, in part, by the fear of religious persecution, but above all, drawn by the hope of owning land. They were a mixed lot: English Separatists from Leiden, French Huguenots, Dutch burghers, Mennonite peasants from the Rhine Valley, and a few gentleman Anglicans. But they shared a quality of toughness. Here is their story from award-winning historian Louis B. Wright.

To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey through West Africa


Rick Antonson - 2008
    But to many it is a vaguely recognizable name – a flippant tag for “the most remote place on earth.” With this fabled city as his goal, author Rick Antonson began a month-long trek. His initial plan? To get a haircut. Aided by an adventuresome spirit, Rick endures a forty-five hour train ride, a swindling travel agent, “Third World, three-lane” roads, rivers, and a flat deck ferry boat before finally reaching Timbuktu. Rick narrates the history of this elusive destination through the teachings of his Malian guide Zak, and encounters with stranded tourists, a camel owner, a riverboat captain, and the people who call Timbuktu home.Antonson’s eloquence and quiet wit highlight the city’s myths—the centuries old capital and traveler’s dream—as well as its realities: A city gripped by poverty, where historic treasures lie close to the sands of destruction. Indeed, some 700,000 ancient manuscripts remain there, endangered. Both a travelogue and a history of a place long forgotten, To Timbuktu for a Haircut emerges as a plea to preserve the past and open cultural dialogues on a global scale.The second edition of this important book outlines the volatile political situations in Timbuktu following the spring 2012 military coup in Mali and the subsequent capture of the city by Islamic extremists. Literally, it is a race against time to save the city’s irreplaceable artifacts, mosques, and monuments, and to understand why Timbuktu’s past is essential to the future of Africa.

Easter Rising: A History From Beginning to End


Hourly History - 2016
    The revolutionary movement faced many problems from the beginning, including splintered leadership, disorganized support, opposition from moderate supporters of home rule, and prepared retaliation from the British. Inside you will read about... ✓ Background of the Easter Rebellion ✓ Planning the Easter Rising ✓ The Easter Rising Begins ✓ The Easter Rising, Days Two and Three ✓ The Easter Rising, Days Four and Five, and the Easter Rising Across Ireland ✓ The Easter Rising Comes to an End on Saturday ✓ Aftermath of the Easter Rising Even though the rebels did not achieve their ultimate goal of Irish independence, they were successful, because they rallied many more of their countrymen to the cause of independence. The legacy of their bravery and love of country inspired generations of Irish men and women, and helped lead to independence. This is the story of what led to the uprising, the events of the rising, and its impact.