This title provides an authoritative account of the wars between Britain and Ireland in the 17th century.William III's defeat of James II's Catholic army at the Battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690 ended the Stuart dynasty's last hope of survival. It…
The garrotters who terrified London in 1862, the Irish Fenians who carried our terrorist bombings in London and the gangs who dominated parts of the East End in the early years of the twentieth century all used violence to achieve their ends. "Hard…
In "Stations of the Sun" and "The Triumph of the Moon", Ronald Hutton established himself as a leading authority on the historian of Paganism. His wealth of unusual knowledge, complemented by a deep and sympathetic understanding of past and present…
The figure of the governess is very familiar from 19th-century literature. Much less is known about the governess in reality. This work explores what the life of the home schoolroom was actually like. Drawing on original diaries and a variety of sou…
In the eighteenth century, England became the richest and most powerful country in the world. This is a rounded portrait of English culture in the eighteenth century. Not only a matter of leading writers, from Swift and Pope to Dr. Johnson and Sheri…
Boudica, or Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, led a famous revolt against Roman rule in Britain in AD 60, sacking London, Colchester and St Albans and throwing the province into chaos. Although then defeated by the governor, Suetonius Paulinus, her rebe…
This is an in-depth study of how this notorious figure has captured the public imagination, in both life and legend. For two centuries the image of Jew Suss has been adapted, distorted and transformed by writers and film directors. In telling the st…
'In war, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns. Thus it may be known that the leader of armies is the arbiter of the people's fate, the man on whom it depends whether the nation shall be in peace or peril...' ("Sun Tzu The Art of W…
The execution of Charles I in 1649, followed by the proclamation of a Commonwealth, was an extraordinary political event. It followed a bitter Civil War between parliament and the king, and their total failure to negotiate a subsequent peace settlem…
When James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth as James I on the throne of England in 1603, the Stuarts became the first dynasty to rule Britain as a whole. The problems that James and his successors encountered in reconciling their kingdoms led to t…
The oppression of minorities has been a theme in the history of Europe. It has been a cause of dispute over territory, often resulting in war. With nation states demanding undivided loyalty of its citizens, there has been discrimination and racism,…
William Gladstone, 'The Grand Old Man' of nineteenth-century politics, was Prime Minister four times. Throughout his life, women, including Queen Victoria (with whom he had a somewhat strained relationship - she famously describing him as a 'half-ma…
This detailed local history examines the impact of the Lollards and the Reformation on the society, local government and church of York.
Pigs were an important and integral part of English village life, both visible and essential. Living in close proximity to their owners and fed on scraps, they were the subject of perennial interest. While the words associated with the pig, such as…
This is a rich and lively account of the women of ancient Egypt from goddesses to dancing girls, queens to housewives. The fragmentary evidence allows us only tantalising glimpses of the sophisticated and complex society of the ancient Egyptians. Ca…
All truly religious movements are informed by a search for spiritual renewal, often signalled by an attempt to return to what are seen as the original, undiluted values of earlier times. Elements of this process are to be seen in the history of almo…
The idea of a Channel Tunnel has always aroused strong emotions in Britain. It has been supported by those wanting closer political, economic and cultural links with Europe but opposed by believers in Britain's island identity and overseas empire. I…
British Politics in the Age of Anne is a book that anyone with an interest in the period will wish to possess: completely authoritative, yet as attractive to the student and the general reader as to the specialist. The author has both revised the te…
This is a fascinating insight into the relationship between Arthur Balfour and Chaim Weizmann and an important background to the Arab-Israeli conflict raging today.On November 2nd 1917 Arthur Balfour, then Foreign Secretary, wrote to Lord Rothschild…
The literature of chivalry and of courtly love has left an indelible impression on western ideas. What is less clear is how far the contemporary warrior aristocracy took this literature to heart and how far its ideals had influence in practice, espe…
This book traces the origins and evolution of the enmity between England and France over the four hundred years in which England was a continental European land power. The medieval claim to the throne of France was not formally abandoned by the Brit…
This is a detailed exploration of how the antagonism between England and France originated and evolved over 400 years.This book traces the origins and evolution of the enmity between England and France over the 400 years in which England was a conti…
"Napoleon and Russia" tells, for the first time, the full story of Napoleon and his crucial relationship with Russia, from the 1790s and Bonaparte's rise to power, through the period of Austerlitz, Tilsit and the Russian invasion, to the Emperor's f…
The Haskins Society, named after the celebrated American medievalist Charles Homer Haskins, was founded in 1982 to provide a forum for the discussion and study of English and related continental history in the middle ages.
In one of the ironies of history, the French Revolution led to the execution of Louis XVI and the abolition of the monarchy but also to the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte. Born into an impoverished noble family in Ajaccio in Corsica, Napoleon's astoni…
Considers many facets of the medieval church, dealing with institutions, buildings, personalities and literature. The text explores the origins of the diocese and the parish, the history of the See of Hereford and of York Minster. It discusses the a…
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1866 edition by Alexander Strahan, London and New York.
Everyday Life in Medieval England captures the day-to-day experience of people in the middle ages - the houses and settlements in which they lived, the food they ate, their getting and spending - and their social relationships. The picture that emer…
This is a major new scholarly biography of Machiavelli, the first for thirty years. Niccolo di Bernardo Machiavelli is not only one of the most fascinating figures of the Italian Renaissance, an outstanding author and statesman, he is also indisputa…
A.G. Dickens is the most eminent English historian of the Reformation. His books and articles have illuminated both the history and the historiography of the Reformation in England and in Germany. Late Monasticism and the Reformation contains an edi…
How names were acquired, and how they have changed, is a subject of perennial fascination. They are part of our personal histories, defining who we are and where we live. Names are everywhere, identifying people, places, animals, ships, materials, p…
Trees are special, being bigger than us both physically and metaphorically. "Trees: Woodlands and Western Civilization" is an account of our relationship with them. Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden for eating from the Tree of Knowledge and the g…
In the early morning of 7 September 1838, Grace Darling, the daughter of the keeper of the Longstone Light on the Farne Isles, rowed with her father to rescue survivors from the wrecked steamer Forfarshire. Her heroism caused a sensation. She was as…
The men and women who gathered at the Tabard Inn in Southwark in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" are only the most famous of the tens of thousands of English pilgrims, from kings to peasants, who set off to the shrines of saints and the sites of miracl…
This work explores Dr Johnson's relationships with six remarkable and successful female authors: Elizabeth Carter; Hannah More; Charlotte Lennox; Hester Thrale; Fanney Burney; and Elizabeth Montagu. These women's characters and achievements are also…
At its height British toymaking was a significant industry, with famous names such as Britains and Meccano known throughout the world. While in essence a specialized form of small-scale engineering, its products and market have always been unique, r…
If Cleopatra's nose had been half an inch longer, neither Caesar nor Mark Anthony would have fallen in love with her. It: The History of Human Beauty treats outstanding physical attractiveness as a quality or possession, comparable to power, intelli…
This title considers the Jews of medieval England as victims of violence (notably the Clifford's Tower massacre) and as an isolated people. In July 1290, Edward I issued writs to the Sheriffs of the English counties ordering them to enforce a decree…
The author sees the history of Western Science as the history of a vision and an argument, initiated by the ancient Greeks in their search for principles at once of nature and of argument itself. This scientific vision explored and controlled by arg…
Patrick Collinson is the leading historian of English religion in the years after the Reformation. The topics covered by this collection of essays ranges from Thomas Cranmer, who was burnt at the stake after repeated recantations in 1556, to William…
Twenty-five million emigrants left the British Isles in the four hundred years after 1600, mainly travelling to America or to parts of the British Empire around the world. This huge exodus, the greatest of any nation before the twentieth century, ac…
Napoleon's soldiers marched across Europe from Lisbon to Moscow, and from Germany to Dalmatia. Many of the men, mostly conscripted by ballot, had never before been beyond their native village. What did they make of the extraordinary experiences, fig…
It was called the 'Tichborne Romance' and it became the greatest cause-celebre of the Victorian age. In 1865, a butcher from Wagga Wagga in Australia proclaimed himself to be the English aristocrat, Sir Roger Tichborne, thought to have died at sea m…
Asquith was at the pinnacle of his success when the course of his life and that of his country was changed by the outbreak of the First World War. Instead of being over by Christmas 1914, the war became a stalemate, with opposing trenches extending…
Few historians have had a greater impact on their chosen period than K.B. McFarlane. This complete collection of the articles that he published during his lifetime represents the core of his work.
Insights into the three wars which constituted the rise, stagger and fall of the British Empire.
