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Displaying records 1 through 10 of 3522 |
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Price: $39.95
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Sale: $21.50
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Manufacturer: Harper
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Hardcover
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Author: Carlo D'este
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Publisher: Harper
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Dewey Decimal Number: 941.082092
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Publication Date: 2008-11-01
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Reading Level: 864
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Description: Carlo D'Este's brilliant new biography examines Winston Churchill through the prism of his military service as both a soldier and a warlord: a descendant of Marlborough who, despite never having risen above the rank of lieutenant colonel, came eventually at age sixty-five to direct Britain's military campaigns as prime minister and defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito for the democracies. Warlord is the definitive chronicle of Churchill's crucial role as one of the world's most renowned military leaders, from his early adventures on the North-West Frontier of colonial India and the Boer War through his extraordinary service in both World Wars. Even though Churchill became one of the towering political leaders of the twentieth century, his childhood ambition was to be a soldier. Using extensive, untapped archival materials, D'Este reveals important and untold observations from Churchill's personal physician, as well as other colleagues and family members, in order to illuminate his character as never before. Warlord explores Churchill's strategies behind the major military campaigns of World War I and World War II—both his dazzling successes and disastrous failures—while also revealing his tumultuous relationships with his generals and other commanders, including Dwight D. Eisenhower. As riveting as the man it portrays, Warlord is a masterful, unsparing portrait of one of history's most fascinating and influential leaders during what was arguably the most crucial event in human history.
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Price: $15.95
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Sale: $8.98
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Manufacturer: Modern Library
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Amanda Foreman
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Publisher: Modern Library
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Dewey Decimal Number: 941.07092
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Publication Date: 2001-01-16
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Reading Level: 512
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Description: Georgiana Spencer was, in a sense, an 18th-century It Girl. She came from one of England's richest and most landed families (the late Princess Diana was a Spencer too) and married into another. She was beautiful, sensitive, and extravagant--drugs, drink, high-profile love affairs, and even gambling counted among her favorite leisure-time activities. Nonetheless, she quickly moved from a world dominated by social parties to one focused on political parties. The duchess was an intimate of ministers and princes, and she canvassed assiduously for the Whig cause, most famously in the Westminster election of 1784. By turns she was caricatured and fawned on by the press, and she provided the inspiration for the character of Lady Teazle in Richard Sheridan's famous play The School for Scandal. But her weaknesses marked the last part of her life. By 1784, for one, Georgiana owed "many, many, many thousands," and her creditors dogged her until her death. Biographer Amanda Foreman describes astutely the mess that surrounded the personal relationships of the aristocratic subculture (Georgiana and the duke engaged for many years in a ménage à trois with Lady Elizabeth Fraser, who inveigled her way into the duke's bed and the duchess's heart). Foreman is, by her own admission, a little in love with her subject, which can lead to occasional lapses of perspective, but generally it adds zest to a narrative built on, rather than burdened by, scholarship, that is at once accessible and learned. An impressive debut, in every sense. --David Vincent, Amazon.co.uk
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Price: $27.95
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Sale: $16.49
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Manufacturer: Basic Books
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Hardcover
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Author: Claire Berlinski
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Publisher: Basic Books
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Dewey Decimal Number: 941.0858092
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Publication Date: 2008-09-29
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Reading Level: 400
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Description: Great Britain in the 1970s appeared to be in terminal decline—ungovernable, an economic train wreck, and rapidly headed for global irrelevance. Three decades later, it is the richest and most influential country in Europe, and Margaret Thatcher is the reason. The preternaturally determined Thatcher rose from nothing, seized control of Britain’s Conservative party, and took a sledgehammer to the nation’s postwar socialist consensus. She proved that socialism could be reversed, inspiring a global free-market revolution. Simultaneously exploiting every politically useful aspect of her femininity and defying every conventional expectation of women in power, Thatcher crushed her enemies with a calculated ruthlessness that stunned the British public and without doubt caused immense collateral damage. Ultimately, however, Claire Berlinski agrees with Thatcher: There was no alternative. Berlinski explains what Thatcher did, why it matters, and how she got away with it in this vivid and immensely readable portrait of one of the towering figures of the twentieth century. |
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Price: $16.95
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Sale: $8.63
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Manufacturer: Grove Press
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Alison Weir
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Publisher: Grove Press
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Edition: 1st Grove Press Paperback
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Dewey Decimal Number: 942.0520922
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Publication Date: 1991-01-10
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Reading Level: 656
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Description: The tempestuous, bloody, and splendid reign of Henry VIII of England (1509-1547) is one of the most fascinating in all history, not least for his marriage to six extraordinary women. In this accessible work of brilliant scholarship, Alison Weir draws on early biographies, letters, memoirs, account books, and diplomatic reports to bring these women to life. Catherine of Aragon emerges as a staunch though misguided woman of principle; Anne Boleyn, an ambitious adventuress with a penchant for vengeance; Jane Seymour, a strong-minded matriarch in the making; Anne of Cleves, a good-natured and innocent woman naively unaware of the court intrigues that determined her fate; Catherine Howard, an empty-headed wanton; and Catherine Parr, a warm-blooded bluestocking who survived King Henry to marry a fourth time.
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Price: $13.95
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Sale: $7.28
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Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Bill Bryson
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Publisher: Harper Perennial
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Dewey Decimal Number: 809
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Publication Date: 2008-10
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Reading Level: 208
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Description: William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of wild supposition arranged around scant facts. With a steady hand and his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself. His Shakespeare is like no one else's—the beneficiary of Bryson's genial nature, his engaging skepticism, and a gift for storytelling unrivaled in our time.
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Price: $12.95
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Sale: $9.72
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Manufacturer: Michael O'Mara
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Hardcover
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Publisher: Michael O'Mara
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Dewey Decimal Number: 941.084092
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Publication Date: 2001-10-01
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Reading Level: 162
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Description: Sir Winston Churchill was the greatest orator of his day, the greatest statesman of his age, and the greatest Englishman of the 20th century. This enchanting collection gathers hundreds of his funniest and wickedest quips in tribute to the exhilarating wit of this great-hearted, infuriatingly conceited, wildly funny, and brilliantly talented Englishman. |
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Price: $16.00
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Sale: $7.00
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Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Alison Weir
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Publisher: Ballantine Books
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Dewey Decimal Number: 941.0840922
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Publication Date: 1997-07-08
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Reading Level: 416
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Description: The royal family may have its problems these days, but as Alison Weir reminds us in this cohesive and impeccably researched book, the nobility of old England could be both loveless and ruthless. Weir, an expert in the period and author of a book on Henry's VIII wives, focuses on the children of Henry VIII who reigned successively after his death in 1547: Edward VI, Mary I ("Bloody Mary") and Elizabeth I. The three shared little--living in separate homes--except for a familial legacy of blood and terror. This is exciting history and fascinating reading about a family of mythic proportions.
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Price: $14.95
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Sale: $4.25
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Manufacturer: Basic Books
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Alfred Lansing
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Publisher: Basic Books
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Edition: 2nd
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Dewey Decimal Number: 919.8904
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Publication Date: 1999-03-18
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Reading Level: 288
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Description: The astonishing saga of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton's survival for over a year on the ice-bound Antarctic seas, as Time magazine put it, "defined heroism." Alfred Lansing's scrupulously researched and brilliantly narrated book -- with over 200,000 copies sold -- has long been acknowledged as the definitive account of the Endurance's fateful trip. To write their authoritative story, Lansing consulted with ten of the surviving members and gained access to diaries and personal accounts by eight others. The resulting book has all the immediacy of a first-hand account, expanded with maps and illustrations especially for this edition.
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Price: $17.00
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Sale: $7.91
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Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Alison Weir
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Publisher: Ballantine Books
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Dewey Decimal Number: 942.055092
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Publication Date: 1999-10
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Reading Level: 560
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Description: The long life and powerful personality of England's beloved Virgin Queen have eternal appeal, and popular historian Alison Weir depicts both with panache. She's especially good at evoking the physical texture of Tudor England: the elaborate royal gowns (actually an intricate assembly of separate fabric panels buttoned together over linen shifts), the luxurious but unhygienic palaces (Elizabeth got the only "close stool"; most members of her retinue relieved themselves in the courtyards), the huge meals heavily seasoned to disguise the taste of spoiled meat. Against this earthy backdrop, Elizabeth's intelligence and formidable political skills stand in vivid relief. She may have been autocratic, devious, even deceptive, but these traits were required to perform a 45-year tightrope walk between the two great powers of Europe, France and Spain. Both countries were eager to bring small, weak England under their sway and to safely marry off its inconveniently independent queen. Weir emphasizes Elizabeth's precarious position as a ruling woman in a man's world, suggesting plausibly that the single life was personally appealing as well as politically expedient for someone who had seen many ambitious ladies--including her own mother--ruined and even executed for just the appearance of sexual indiscretions. The author's evaluations of such key figures in Elizabeth's reign as the Earl of Leicester (arguably the only man she ever loved) and William Cecil (her most trusted adviser) are equally cogent and respectful of psychological complexity. Weir does a fine job of retelling this always-popular story for a new generation. --Wendy Smith
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Price: $13.95
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Sale: $4.99
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Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Simon Winchester
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Publisher: Harper Perennial
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Dewey Decimal Number: 423.092
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Publication Date: 2005-07-01
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Reading Level: 288
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Description: When the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary put out a call during the late 19th century pleading for "men of letters" to provide help with their mammoth undertaking, hundreds of responses came forth. Some helpers, like Dr. W.C. Minor, provided literally thousands of entries to the editors. But Minor, an American expatriate in England and a Civil War veteran, was actually a certified lunatic who turned in his dictionary entries from the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Simon Winchester has produced a mesmerizing coda to the deeply troubled Minor's life, a life that in one sense began with the senseless murder of an innocent British brewery worker that the deluded Minor believed was an assassin sent by one of his numerous "enemies." Winchester also paints a rich portrait of the OED's leading light, Professor James Murray, who spent more than 40 years of his life on a project he would not see completed in his lifetime. Winchester traces the origins of the drive to create a "Big Dictionary" down through Murray and far back into the past; the result is a fascinating compact history of the English language (albeit admittedly more interesting to linguistics enthusiasts than historians or true crime buffs). That Murray and Minor, whose lives took such wildly disparate turns yet were united in their fierce love of language, were able to view one another as peers and foster a warm friendship is just one of the delicately turned subplots of this compelling book. --Tjames Madison
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Displaying records 1 through 10 of 3522
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