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The bestselling, award-winning author of The American Invasion of Canada “has given great drama and immediacy to that turning point in Canadian history” ( Maclean’s ). On Easter Monday 1917 with a blizzard blowing in their faces, the four divisions of the Canadian Corps in France seized and held the best-defended German bastion on the Western Front—the muddy scarp of Vimy Ridge. The British had failed to take the Ridge, and so had the French who had lost 150,000 men in the attempt. Yet these magnificent colonial troops did so in a morning at the cost of only 10,000 casualties. The author recounts this remarkable feat of arms with both pace and style. He has gathered many personal accounts from soldiers who fought at Vimy. He describes the commanders and the men, the organization and the training, and above all notes the thorough preparation for the attack from which the British General Staff could have learned much. The action is placed within the context both of the Battle of Arras, of which this attack was part, and as a milestone in the development of Canada as a nation. “This wonderful book brings to life the amazing men who came across the Atlantic nearly a century ago and won a famous victory which helped change a nation forever . . . the wonderful prose of Pierre Berton is all from the heart and you should share in it.” — War History Online “The cinematic writing plunks the reader in the midst of the actual battle, and a judicious use of quotes from soldiers’ diaries and letters helps provide a ground-level perspective.” — Quill & Quire |
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“Crooker, who is a good historian and also quite witty, tells a tale of folly and obsession” surrounding the legendary treasure off of Canada’s east coast ( Booklist ). For over two centuries, the mysterious labyrinth of shafts and tunnels under Oak Island, a tiny island on Nova Scotia’s South Shore, has been the scene of a frantic search by scores of treasure hunters from two continents. They believe that the shafts and intricate man-made flooding system hold the secret to a treasure of untold wealth. Although millions have been spent, bitter feuds have erupted, and men have died, the treasure has remained as elusive as the answers to who built the labyrinth, why and how it was constructed, and the nature of the treasure itself. Until now. In his second book on the Oak Island mystery, William Crooker meticulously sifts through the evidence unearthed by treasure hunters on the island, past and present. Then, armed with some starling new discoveries, he neatly fits the pieces together to offer a plausible solution to the baffling puzzle of Oak Island. “Crooker, an engineer and surveyor, presents both a thorough historical review of the various digs and a look at all the theories about the treasure.” — Library Journal |
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"Ty Seidule scorches us with the truth and rivets us with his fierce sense of moral urgency." --Ron Chernow In a forceful but humane narrative, former soldier and head of the West Point history department Ty Seidule's Robert E. Lee and Me challenges the myths and lies of the Confederate legacy—and explores why some of this country’s oldest wounds have never healed. Ty Seidule grew up revering Robert E. Lee. From his southern childhood to his service in the U.S. Army, every part of his life reinforced the Lost Cause myth: that Lee was the greatest man who ever lived, and that the Confederates were underdogs who lost the Civil War with honor. Now, as a retired brigadier general and Professor Emeritus of History at West Point, his view has radically changed. From a soldier, a scholar, and a southerner, Ty Seidule believes that American history demands a reckoning. In a unique blend of history and reflection, Seidule deconstructs the truth about the Confederacy—that its undisputed primary goal was the subjugation and enslavement of Black Americans—and directly challenges the idea of honoring those who labored to preserve that system and committed treason in their failed attempt to achieve it. Through the arc of Seidule’s own life, as well as the culture that formed him, he seeks a path to understanding why the facts of the Civil War have remained buried beneath layers of myth and even outright lies—and how they embody a cultural gulf that separates millions of Americans to this day. Part history lecture, part meditation on the Civil War and its fallout, and part memoir, Robert E. Lee and Me challenges the deeply-held legends and myths of the Confederacy—and provides a surprising interpretation of essential truths that our country still has a difficult time articulating and accepting. |
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Packed with startling revelations, this inside look at the secret side of the Cold War exposes just how close America came to total annihilation During the Cold War, a flight crew had 15 minutes to get their nuke-laden plane in the air from the moment Soviet bombers were detected—15 minutes between the earliest warning of an incoming nuclear strike and the first flash of an enemy warhead. This is the chilling true story of the incredibly risky steps our military took to protect us from that scenario, including: • Over two thousand loaded bombers that crossed American skies. They sometimes crashed and at least nine times resulted in nuclear weapons being accidentally dropped • A system that would use timers and rockets to launch missiles even after everyone was dead • Disastrous atmospheric nuclear testing including the horrific runaway bomb—that fooled scientists and put thousands of men in uniform in the center of a cloud of hot fallout • A plan to use dry lake beds to rebuild and launch a fighting force in the aftermath of nuclear war Based on formerly classified documents, military records, press accounts, interviews and over 10 years of research, 15 Minutes is one of the most important works on the atom bomb ever written. |
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“Sets the record straight on Albert Speer’s assertions of ignorance of the Final Solution and claims to being the ‘good Nazi.’”— Kirkus Reviews   In his bestselling autobiography, Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments and chief architect of Nazi Germany, repeatedly insisted he knew nothing of the genocidal crimes of Hitler’s Third Reich. In this revealing new biography, author Martin Kitchen disputes Speer’s lifelong assertions of ignorance and innocence, portraying a far darker figure who was deeply implicated in the appalling crimes committed by the regime he served so well.   Kitchen reconstructs Speer’s life with what we now know, including information from valuable new sources that have come to light only in recent years. The result is the first truly serious accounting of the man, his beliefs, and his actions during one of the darkest epochs in modern history, not only countering Speer’s claims of non-culpability but also disputing the commonly held misconception that it was his unique genius alone that kept the German military armed and fighting long after its defeat was inevitable.   “A devastating portrait of an empty, narcissistic and compulsively ambitious personality.”— The Wall Street Journal   “Kitchen’s exhaustively researched, detailed book nails, one by one, the lies of the man who provided a thick coat of whitewash to millions of old Nazis. Its fascinating account of how the moral degradation of the chaotic Nazi regime corrupted an entire nation is a timely warning for today.”— Daily Mail (“Book of the Month”)   “[An] excellent new biography . . . Kitchen has taken a wrecking ball to Speer’s mendacious and meticulously created self-image. And about time, too.”— History Today |
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A colorful and authoritative narrative history of the often-overlooked—yet hugely influential—figures of the Tudor court: the ladies-in-waiting. Every Tudor Queen had ladies-in-waiting. They were her confidantes and her chaperones. Only the Queen's ladies had the right to enter her most private chambers, spending hours helping her to get dressed and undressed, caring for her clothes and jewels, listening to her secrets. But they also held a unique power. A quiet word behind the scenes, an appropriately timed gift, a well-negotiated marriage alliance were all forms of political agency wielded expertly by women. The Waiting Game explores the daily lives of ladies-in-waiting, revealing the secrets of recruitment, costume, what they ate, where (and with whom) they slept. We meet María de Salinas, who traveled to England with Catherine of Aragon when just a teenager and spied for her during the divorce from Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn's lady-in-waiting Jane Parker was instrumental in the execution of not one, but two queens. And maid-of-honor Anne Basset kept her place through the last four consorts, negotiating the conflicting loyalties of her birth family, her mistress the Queen, and even the desires of the King himself. As Henry changed wives—and changed the very fabric of the country's structure besides—these women had to make choices about loyalty that simply didn't exist before. The Waiting Game is the first time their vital story has been told. |
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Destined to become a modern classic in the vein of Guns, Germs, and Steel , Sapiens is a lively, groundbreaking history of humankind told from a unique perspective.      100,000 years ago, at least six species of human inhabited the earth. Today there is just one.      Us. Homo Sapiens .      How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations, and human rights; to trust money, books, and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables, and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come?      In Sapiens , Dr. Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical — and sometimes devastating — breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural, and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, palaeontology, and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come?      Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power...and our future. |
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One of Indigo's Top 10 History Books of 2024 A brilliant, seat-of-your-pants hostage-taking and daring SAS rescue mission of the Iran Embassy in London in 1980, this is Ben Macintyre at the very height of his story-telling powers. On April 30, 1980, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian embassy on Prince’s Gate, overlooking Hyde Park in London. There, they took 26 hostages, including embassy staff, visitors, and three British citizens. A tense six-day siege ensued—all on television, over a Bank Holiday weekend—in which police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the standoff, while the SAS laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod. This mission marked a fundamental turning point in global history, when Middle Eastern terrorism arrived in the West. Britain had experienced IRA terrorism before, but never an international terrorist incident on this scale. It was a precursor to the brutal Iran-Iraq War that would follow, in which millions perished. Yet there exists to this day no full account of the week-long siege and gripping rescue. Drawing on interviews with police, hostages, terrorists and key SAS figures, and cutting through the sensationalism and misinformation, bestselling historian Ben Macintyre (author of Sunday Times #1s Colditz , The Spy and the Traitor and SAS: Rogue Heroes ) goes deep into the archives with exclusive access to tell the story of what really happened and give the first definitive account of a moment that forever changed the way the nation thought about the SAS—and itself. |
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Sir John A. Macdonald had been in politics for four decades and prime minister of Canada for three terms, but he’d never seen anything like the apocalyptic year of 1885. The issues cascaded relentlessly: threats to the sovereignty of Canada from London and Washington; armed resistance in the North-West; the spectre of starvation among Indigenous peoples; financial crises that endangered the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR); protests over Chinese immigration to British Columbia; nationalist dissent in Quebec; a smallpox epidemic that would claim over 5,000 victims in Montreal; and fierce opposition to Macdonald’s drive to expand the right to vote. It was a year like no other in Canadian history. In this fascinating and authoritative study of a skilled politician at the peak of his powers, political historian Patrice Dutil shows how Macdonald navigated persistent threats to public order, anchored the stability of his government, and ensured the future of his still fragile nation. What emerges is a compelling portrait of a man who, notwithstanding his personal failings and the sins of his times, was the most enlightened and constructive public figure of early Canadian history. |
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Stephen E. Ambrose’s classic New York Times bestseller and inspiration for the acclaimed HBO series about Easy Company, the ordinary men who became the World War II’s most extraordinary soldiers at the frontlines of the war's most critical moments. Featuring a foreword from Tom Hanks. They came together, citizen soldiers, in the summer of 1942, drawn to Airborne by the $50 monthly bonus and a desire to be better than the other guy. And at its peak—in Holland and the Ardennes—Easy Company was as good a rifle company as any in the world. From the rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to the disbanding in 1945, Stephen E. Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company. In combat, the reward for a job well done is the next tough assignment, and as they advanced through Europe, the men of Easy kept getting the tough assignments. They parachuted into France early D-Day morning and knocked out a battery of four 105 mm cannon looking down Utah Beach; they parachuted into Holland during the Arnhem campaign; they were the Battered Bastards of the Bastion of Bastogne, brought in to hold the line, although surrounded, in the Battle of the Bulge; and then they spearheaded the counteroffensive. Finally, they captured Hitler's Bavarian outpost, his Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. They were rough-and-ready guys, battered by the Depression, mistrustful and suspicious. They drank too much French wine, looted too many German cameras and watches, and fought too often with other GIs. But in training and combat they learned selflessness and found the closest brotherhood they ever knew. They discovered that in war, men who loved life would give their lives for them. This is the story of the men who fought, of the martinet they hated who trained them well, and of the captain they loved who led them. E Company was a company of men who went hungry, froze, and died for each other, a company that took 150 percent casualties, a company where the Purple Heart was not a medal—it was a badge of office. |
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The international bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor reveals one of the last great untold spy stories of the twentieth century: the woman hidden in plain sight who set the stage for the Cold War. In 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy Cotswolds, an unassuming woman lived in a small cottage with her children and machinist husband, Len. Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple life. Her neighbours had no idea that Burton was in fact a dedicated communist and Soviet Colonel who had conducted espionage operations in China, Poland, and Switzerland. They did not know that Burton kept a powerful radio transmitter connected to Moscow in the outhouse or that Len too was a spy. And they certainly did not know that Burton frequently biked across the countryside to rendezvous with Klaus Fuchs, the nuclear physicist working on Britain's top-secret atomic-weapons program—also her best agent. Macintyre's latest true-life spy story is a masterpiece about the woman code-named "Sonya," one of the most important female spies in history. Hunted by the Chinese, Japanese, Nazis, MI5, MI6, and FBI, she evaded all and survived the brutal Soviet purges that left her friends and colleagues dead. Her story reflects the great ideological clash of the twentieth century, between communism, fascism, and Western democracy, casting new light on the spy battles and shifting allegiances of our own times. With unprecedented access to Sonya's papers and intelligence files, Macintyre conjures a thrilling secret history of a landmark agent, a true original who altered the course of the Cold War and helped plunge the world into a nuclear standoff that would last for decades. |
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The story of the British-made bombs, Upkeep and Highball, successfully dropped on Nazi dams “ has never been told in such depth before” ( Daily Mail , UK).   The night of May 16, 1943: Nineteen specially adapted Lancaster bombers take off from an RAF airfield in Lincolnshire, England, each with a huge nine-thousand-pound cylindrical bomb strapped underneath it. Their mission: to destroy three hydroelectric dams that power the Third Reich’s war machine.   It was a suicide mission from the outset. First the men had to fly extremely low, at night, and in tight formation over miles of enemy-occupied territory. Then they had to drop with pinpoint precision a complicated spinning cylindrical bomb that had never before been used operationally. More than that, the entire operation had to be put together in less than ten weeks in order to hit the dams when water levels were still high enough for the bombs to be effective.   The visionary aviation engineer Barnes Wallis hadn’t even drawn up plans for his concept when the bouncing bomb was green-lighted. What followed was an incredible race against time that, despite numerous setbacks, became one of the most successful and significant bombing raids of all time. “Holland has delved into the new trove” of declassified documents “to shed light on this weapons program, the politics of its development and the eventual mission” ( The Wall Street Journal ).   “An impeccably researched work in the style of a fast-paced techno-thriller.” — Publishers Weekly   “Extremely detailed but never dull . . . Holland offers a definitive, nuts-and-bolts history.” — Kirkus Reviews   “A well-written study of engineering and invention operating under great pressure. . . . For all World War II history buffs.” — Library Journal , starred review |
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The scandalous history of neglect, abuse, and exploitation at a residential school for children—and the ongoing effects in the decades since it closed. In Indian School Road , journalist Chris Benjamin tackles the controversial and tragic history of Canada’s Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, its predecessors, and its lasting effects, giving voice to multiple perspectives for the first time. Benjamin integrates research, interviews, and testimonies to guide readers through the varied experiences of students, principals, and teachers over the school’s nearly forty years of operation, from 1930 to 1967, and beyond. Exposing the raw wounds of the twenty-first-century Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as well as the struggle for an inclusive Mi’kmaw education system, Indian School Road is a comprehensive and compassionate narrative history of the school that uneducated hundreds of Aboriginal children. |
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In June 1812 the still-infant United States had the audacity to declare war on the British Empire. Fought between creaking sailing ships and armies often led by bumbling generals, the ensuing conflict featured a tit-for-tat "You burned our capital, so we'll burn yours" and a legendary battle unknowingly fought after the signing of a peace treaty. During the course of the war, the young American navy proved its mettle as the USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides," sent two first-rate British frigates to the bottom, and a twenty-seven-year-old lieutenant named Oliver Hazard Perry hoisted a flag exhorting, "Don't Give Up the Ship," and chased the British from Lake Erie. By 1814, however, the United States was no longer fighting for free trade, sailors' rights, and as much of Canada as it could grab, but for its very existence as a nation. With Washington in flames, only a valiant defense at Fort McHenry saved Baltimore from a similar fate. Here are the stories of commanding generals such as America's Henry "Granny" Dearborn, double-dealing James Wilkinson, and feisty Andrew Jackson, as well as Great Britain's gallant Sir Isaac Brock, overly cautious Sir George Prevost, and Rear Admiral George Cockburn, the man who put the torch to Washington. Here too are those inadvertently caught up in the war, from heroine farm wife Laura Secord, whom some call Canada's Paul Revere, to country doctor William Beanes, whose capture set the stage for Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner." 1812: The War That Forged a Nation presents a sweeping narrative that emphasizes the struggle's importance to America's coming-of-age as a nation. Though frequently overlooked between the American Revolution and the Civil War, the War of 1812 did indeed span half a continent -- from Mackinac Island to New Orleans, and Lake Champlain to Horseshoe Bend -- and it paved the way for the conquest of the other half. During the War of 1812, the United States cast aside its cloak of colonial adolescence and -- with both humiliating and glorious moments -- found the fire that was to forge a nation. |
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In Lose Your Mother , Saidiya Hartman journeys along a slave route in Ghana, following the trail of captives from the hinterland to the Atlantic coast. She retraces the history of the Atlantic slave trade from the fifteenth to the twentieth century and reckons with the blank slate of her own genealogy. There were no survivors of Hartman's lineage, nor far-flung relatives in Ghana of whom she had come in search. She traveled to Ghana in search of strangers. The most universal definition of the slave is a stranger—torn from kin and country. To lose your mother is to suffer the loss of kin, to forget your past, and to inhabit the world as a stranger. As both the offspring of slaves and an American in Africa, Hartman, too, was a stranger. Her reflections on history and memory unfold as an intimate encounter with places—a holding cell, a slave market, a walled town built to repel slave raiders—and with people: an Akan prince who granted the Portuguese permission to build the first permanent trading fort in West Africa; an adolescent boy who was kidnapped while playing; a fourteen-year-old girl who was murdered aboard a slave ship. Eloquent, thoughtful, and deeply affecting, Lose Your Mother is a powerful meditation on history, memory, and the Atlantic slave trade. |
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Adolf "Dolfo" Joseph Ferdinand Galland was a German Luftwaffe General and one of the greatest flying aces of World War II. He flew 705 combat missions, and fought on the Western and the Defence of the Reich fronts. On four occasions he survived being shot down, and he was credited with an astonishing 104 aerial victories, all of them against the Western Allies. He is a legend of air combat, and this is his heroic story. First published in 1954, this is a reprint of the original edition and not any revised version. It was a best-seller in 14 languages and sold three million copies. It was also very well received by the British and American airforces as a frank and honest statement of how the war was won and lost in the air. Time magazine called this book "The clearest picture yet of how the Germans lost their war in the air." |
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'Wonderfully written and characteristically brilliant' Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads 'Elegant, readable ... an impressive synthesis ... Not many historians could have done it' - Jonathan Sumption, Spectator 'Tyerman's book is fascinating not just for what it has to tell us about the Crusades, but for the mirror it holds up to today's religious extremism' - Tom Holland, Spectator Thousands left their homelands in the Middle Ages to fight wars abroad. But how did the Crusades actually happen? From recruitment propaganda to raising money, ships to siege engines, medicine to the power of prayer, this vivid, surprising history shows holy war - and medieval society - in a new light. |
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This book presents a very short introduction to the Aztecs using interpretive tools from religious studies and anthropology to uncover the paradox of Aztec life; on the one hand a people highly skilled in sculpture, astronomy, city planning, poetry and philosophic rhetoric while on the other hand a people profoundly committed to cosmic regeneration through the thrust of the ceremonial knife and warfare. |
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War forced millions of Syrians from their homes. It also forced them to rethink the meaning of home itself. In 2011, Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom. Brutal government repression transformed peaceful protests into one of the most devastating conflicts of our times, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing millions. The Home I Worked to Make takes Syria’s refugee outflow as its point of departure. Based on hundreds of interviews conducted across more than a decade, it probes a question as intimate as it is universal: What is home? With gripping immediacy, Syrians now on five continents share stories of leaving, losing, searching, and finding (or not finding) home. Across this tapestry of voices, a new understanding emerges: home, for those without the privilege of taking it for granted, is both struggle and achievement. Recasting “refugee crises” as acts of diaspora-making, The Home I Worked to Make challenges readers to grapple with the hard-won wisdom of those who survive war and to see, with fresh eyes, what home means in their own lives. |
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Over six hundred years ago a woman known as Julian of Norwich wrote what is now regarded as one of the greatest works of literature in English. Based on a sequence of mystical visions she received in 1373, her book is called Revelations of Divine Love. Julian lived through an age of political and religious turmoil, as well as through the misery of the Black Death, and her writing engages with timeless questions about life, love and the meaning of suffering. But who was Julian of Norwich? And what can she teach us today? Medievalist and TV historian Janina Ramirez invites you to join her in exploring Julian’s remarkable life and times, offering insights into how and why her writing has survived, and what we can learn from this fourteenth-century mystic whose work lay hidden in the shadows of her male contemporaries for far too long. |
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A personal history of one family’s hardships at the dawn of World War II, when thousands of Poles were forced into exile by the Soviet government. “A finely wrought memoir of loss and survival…. With this work, Adamczyk has brought illumination and honor to the families of the thousands who suffered the same terrible fate.”— Publishers Weekly In the shadow of the Holocaust, the Soviet Union’s quiet yet brutal campaign against Polish citizens is often overlooked. Wesley Adamczyk’s gripping memoir, When God Looked the Other Way , gives voice to the hundreds of thousands of victims of Soviet barbarism. Adamczyk was a young Polish boy when he was deported with his mother and siblings from their comfortable home in Luck to Soviet Serbia in May of 1940. His father, a Polish Army officer, was taken prisoner by the Red Army and eventually became one of the victims of the Katyn massacre, in which tens of thousands of Polish officers were slain at the hands of the Soviet secret police. The family’s separation and deportation marked the beginning of a ten-year odyssey in which Adamczyk endured nearly intolerable living conditions, meager food rations, and life-threatening epidemics. A memoir of a childhood spent in unspeakable circumstances, When God Looked the Other Way not only illuminates one of the darkest periods of European history but also traces the loss of innocence and the fight against despair that took root in one young boy. Unflinching and poignant, When Good Looked the Other Way stands as a testament of the trials of a family during wartime and an intimate chronicle of an atrocity yet to receive its historical due. “Mr. Adamczyk writes heartfelt, straight—forward prose…. This book sheds light on more than one forgotten episode of history.” — New York Sun “One of the most remarkable World War II sagas I have ever read. It is history with a human face.” — Washington Times |
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “thrilling and superbly crafted” ( The Wall Street Journal ) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day. One of The New York Times Book Review ’s 10 Best Books of the Year “In this masterly history, Sides tracks the 18th-century English naval officer James Cook’s third and final voyage across the globe, painting a vivid and propulsive portrait that blends generations of scholarship with the firsthand accounts of European seafarers as well as the oral traditions of Indigenous Pacific islanders.”— The New York Times Book Review On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution . Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment? Hampton Sides’ bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science-–the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment. Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook’s intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook’s overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter. At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers. |
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“Beautiful . . . an essential book for anyone with an interest in the material culture of the Roman frontier in its wider context.” —Current Archaeology Dr. Rob Collins and the curators of the remarkable collections from Hadrian’s Wall present a striking new contribution to understanding the archaeology of a Roman frontier. This highly illustrated volume showcases the artifacts recovered from archaeological investigations along Hadrian’s Wall in order to examine the daily lives of those living along the Northern Frontier of the Roman Empire. Presented by theme, no other book offers such a diverse and thorough range of the rich material culture of the Wall. The accompanying text provides an ethnographic perspective, guiding us through the everyday lives of the people of frontier communities, from the Commanding Officer to the local farmer. This holistic view allows us an insight into the homes and communities, how people dressed, what they ate and drank, their religions and beliefs, domestic and military forms of security, and how they conducted their business and pleasure. “With so many of the objects described and set in context in this fine book, it gives no more than a brief bright flash of lives once led, and yet provides such a spark for the imagination.” —Hexham Local History Society Newsletter |
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“If not us, who? If not now, when?” In November 2022, Michel Maisonneuve, retired Lieutenant-General of the Canadian Armed Forces, was presented the prestigious Vimy Award in recognition of his outstanding lifetime contributions to the defence of Canada and its democratic values. Before an elite audience of 650 representing government, judicial, academic, corporate and military professions, he launched a stirring defence of the nation he served for five decades. His bracing acceptance speech at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau warned that the principles he was being celebrated for protecting were under assault as never before. Canada was abandoning its history, its civil liberties, its fiscal prudence, its concern for the vulnerable, and its commitment to global stability—things that had long made it not only a great place to live but an important member of the family of nations. The standing ovation Maisonneuve received that night was followed the next morning by calls for his cancellation. His stalwart defence of his views and his courage in speaking out where others dared not have since earned him the nickname “the anti-woke general” and made him a folk hero among Canadians tired of apologizing for their country. In Defence of Canada is one warrior’s heartfelt rallying cry for Canadians to face the reality of their country’s decline, recommit to principles of peace, order and good government, and build for the benefit of future generations a tolerant and diverse nation with boundless potential. |
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THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF GLOBAL CHANGE FROM 1945 TO THE PRESENT DAY The world since 1945 has witnessed fundamental changes, notably the increasing influence of the West - particularly the USA - in a variety of spheres, the emergence and collapse of the USSR, the end of colonial empire in Asia and Africa and the escalation of wars and other conflicts in the Third World. In this incisive survey T. E. Vadney examines the key events without ever neglecting the underlying trends. He explores therapid changes in the Middle East, the end of apartheid in South Africa and the aims of American foreign policy. He concludes with a new epilogue in which he examines the direction of post-1945 history as the world enters the twenty-first century. |
