James Cameron Stewart
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A sensational, interdisciplinary work which entirely reorients our understanding of Europe from 10,000 BC to the time of the Vikings
In this magnificent book, distinguished archaeologist Barry Cunliffe reframes our entire conception of early European history, from prehistory through the ancient world to the medieval Viking period. Cunliffe views Europe not in terms of states and shifting political land boundaries but as a geographical niche particularly...
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Lost in time for generations, the story of a 19th-century English gentleman in British India-a family mystery of love found and loyalties abandoned, finally brought to light. In 1841, twenty-year-old Nigel Halleck set out for Calcutta as a clerk in the East India Company. He went on to serve in the colonial administration for eight years before abruptly leaving the company under a cloud and disappearing in the mountain kingdom of Nepal, never to...
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Sitting on a bench at a communal table in a restaurant in Regensburg, his plate loaded with disturbing amounts of bratwurst and sauerkraut made golden by candlelight shining through a massive glass of beer, Simon Winder was happily swinging his legs when a couple from Rottweil politely but awkwardly asked: "So: why are you here?" This book is an attempt to answer that question. Why spend time wandering around a country that remains a sort of dead...
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John Auden was a pioneering geologist of the Himalayas. Michael Spender was the first to draw a detailed map of the North Face of Mount Everest. While their younger brothers-W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender-achieved literary fame, they vied to be included on an expedition that would deliver Everest's summit to an Englishman, a quest that had become a metaphor for Britain's struggle to maintain power over India. To this rivalry was added another: In...
45) The Mabinogion
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Then they took the flowers of the oak, and the flowers of the broom, and the flowers of the meadowsweet, and from those they conjured up the fairest and most beautiful maiden that anyone had ever seen. Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance, and an intriguing interpretation of British history-these are just some of the themes embraced by the anonymous authors of the eleven tales that make up the Welsh medieval masterpiece known as The Mabinogion. They...
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Popular science writer Philip Ball explores a range of sciences to map our answers to a huge, philosophically rich question: How do we even begin to think about minds that are not human?
Sciences from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience, are seeking to understand minds in their own distinct disciplinary realms. Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where to find them-including in plants, aliens, and God-Philip Ball pulls...
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We regularly encounter appalling wrongdoing, with the media offering a depressing parade of violent assault, rape, and murder. Yet sometimes even the cynical and world-weary amongst us are taken aback. Sometimes we confront a crime so terrible, so horrendous, so deeply wrong, that we reach for the word evil. The 9/11 terrorist attacks were not merely wrong, but evil. A serial killer who tortures their victims is not merely a bad person. They are evil....
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Long neglected in world history, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor, geopolitical power, and enlightened pluralistic rule. At the height of their authority in the sixteenth century, the Ottomans controlled more territory and ruled over more people than any world power, forcing Europeans out of the Mediterranean and to the New World.
Yet, despite its towering influence and centrality to the rise of our modern world, the Ottoman Empire's...
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South Korea's amazing rise from the ashes: the inside story of an economic, political, and cultural phenomenon
Long overshadowed by Japan and China, South Korea is a small country that happens to be one of the great national success stories of the postwar period. From a failed state with no democratic tradition, ruined and partitioned by war, and sapped by a half-century of colonial rule, South Korea transformed itself in just fifty years into an...
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Here is a searing account-probably the best yet published-of life in the underclass and why it persists as it does.
Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in England, has seemingly seen it all. Yet in listening to and observing his patients, he is continually astonished by the latest twist of depravity that exceeds even his own considerable experience. Dalrymple's key insight in Life at the...
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For many business professionals, the daily "to-do" list is hard enough to stay on top of, let alone coming up with the "big ideas" necessary to take their company-or a whole economy-to the next level. But if coming up with those ideas-or finding startups that do-is your job, then The Zero Transaction Cost Entrepreneur is an absolute must-listen for you.
In this book Dermot Berkery shares the key ingredient successful businesses have in common: Smart...
52) Ghosts of Spain
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The appearance, more than sixty years after the Spanish Civil War ended, of mass graves containing victims of Francisco Franco's death squads finally broke what Spaniards call "the pact of forgetting"-the unwritten understanding that their recent, painful past was best left unexplored. At this charged moment, Giles Tremlett embarked on a journey around the country and through its history to discover why some of Europe's most voluble people have kept...
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Over millions of years, fig trees have shaped our world, influenced our evolution, nourished our bodies and fed our imaginations. And as author and ecologist Mike Shanahan proclaims, "The best could be yet to come." Gods, Wasps and Stranglers weaves together the mythology, history and ecology of one of the world's most fascinating-and diverse-groups of plants, from their starring role in every major religion to their potential to restore rainforests,...
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The remarkable and inspiring story of one of the greatest warrior-princes of the Middle Ages-and an unforgettably vivid portrait of warfare and chivalry in the fourteenth century. As a child he was given his own suit of armor; at the age of sixteen, he helped defeat the French at Crecy. At Poitiers, in 1356, his victory over King John II of France forced the French into a humiliating surrender that marked the zenith of England's dominance in the Hundred...
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In this outstanding book, naval historian Peter Padfield explores the ways in which maritime strength has influenced political power from the mid-nineteenth century to the modern age.
Freedom of expression and individual enterprise have distinguished the societies of powers dominant at sea, and since supreme maritime nations have prevailed over their territorial rivals in the great wars of the modern era, it is they who have created today's world.
In...
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From the end of the Middle Ages to the First World War, Europe was dominated by one family: the Habsburgs. Their unprecedented rule is the focus of Simon Winder's vivid third book, Danubia. Winder's approach is friendly, witty, personal; this is a narrative that, while erudite and well researched, prefers to be discursive and anecdotal. In his survey of the centuries of often incompetent Habsburg rule which have continued to shape the fate of Central...
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No nation is a stranger to war, but for Russians war is a central part of who they are. Their "motherland" has been the battlefield where some of the largest armies have clashed, the most savage battles have been fought, the highest death tolls paid. Having prevailed over Mongol hordes and vanquished Napoleon and Hitler, many Russians believe no other nation has sacrificed so much for the world. In Russia: The Story of War Gregory Carleton explores...
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A sweeping, lavish one-volume history of the rise of American naval power during World War II
In this engaging narrative, historian Paul Kennedy grapples with the rise and fall of the Great Powers during World War II. Tracking the movements of the six major navies of the Second World War - the allied navies of Britain, France, and the United States and the Axis navies of Germany, Italy, and Japan - Kennedy tells a story of naval battles, maritime...
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The New York Times bestselling volume in the Penguin History of Europe series Between the end of the Thirty Years' War and the Battle of Waterloo, Europe underwent an extraordinary transformation that saw five of the modern world's great revolutions-scientific, industrial, American, French, and romantic. In this much-admired addition to the monumental Penguin History of Europe series, Tim Blanning brilliantly investigates the forces that transformed...
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Cannae and Agincourt, Waterloo and Gettysburg, Stalingrad and Midway, this compact volume collects the most influential battles and conflicts in history. Covering the past twenty-five centuries, editor Jeremy Black analyzes the effects these events have had on the development of states and civilizations.
Organized chronologically in seven parts, the chapters feature ancient and medieval worlds as well as the wars of the past hundred years, including...