This mid nineteenth century essay focuses on the Dutch Land Reclamations and the Dutch people.

In the years before the First World War, the great European powers were ruled by three first cousins: King George V of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war that set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world.Through brilliant and often darkly comic portraits o...

A masterful dual narrative of Napoleon Bonaparte and a tiny microbe that pits the height of human ambition and achievement against the supremacy of nature, from the New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Blue Water“Gripping . . . Talty brings international politics and science together in a compelling story of personal hubris and humbling defeat.”—Jack Weatherford, author of the New York Times bestseller Genghis Khan a...

In this story of the most famous assassination in history, “the last bloody day of the [Roman] Republic has never been painted so brilliantly” (The Wall Street Journal).Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Roman Senate on March 15, 44 BC—the Ides of March according to the Roman calendar. He was, says author Barry Strauss, the last casualty of one civil war and the first casualty of the next civil war, which would end the Roman Republic and inaugurate ...

First published in 2000, Dipesh Chakrabarty's influential Provincializing Europe addresses the mythical figure of Europe that is often taken to be the original site of modernity in many histories of capitalist transition in non-Western countries. This imaginary Europe, Dipesh Chakrabarty argues, is built into the social sciences. The very idea of historicizing carries with it some peculiarly European assumptions about disenchanted space, secular time, and sovereignty. Measured aga...

"[An] epic account of life and loves among artists and writers in Paris from belle époque to world slump." —William Feaver , The SpectatorA legendary capital of the arts, Paris hosted some of the most legendary developments in world culture—particularly at the beginning of the twentieth century, with the flowering of fauvism, cubism, dadaism, and surrealism.In Bohemian Paris, Dan Franck leads us on a vivid and magical tour of the Paris of ...

In 1373, John of Gaunt set off from Calais on a great raid to strike at the heart of France. Driven by the high ideals of chivalry,the raiders left with epic pageantry. However, the reality soon overwhelmed the raiders. Beset on all sides by French ambushes and plagued by disease and starvation, the raiders battled their way through Champagne, east of Paris, into Burgundy, across the Massif Central and finally down into the Dordogne. Unable to attack any major fortifications, John of Gaunt...

Travelers in the Third Reich is an extraordinary history of the rise of the Nazis based on fascinating first-hand accounts, drawing together a multitude of voices and stories, including politicians, musicians, diplomats, schoolchildren, communists, scholars, athletes, poets, fascists, artists, tourists, and even celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and Samuel Beckett. Their experiences create a remarkable three-dimensional picture of Germany under Hitler—one so palpable that the reader will ...

Barry R. Posen explores how military doctrine takes shape and the role it plays in grand strategy-that collection of military, economic, and political means and ends with which a state attempts to achieve security. Posen isolates three crucial elements of a given strategic doctrine: its offensive, defensive, or deterrent characteristics, its integration of military resources with political aims, and the degree of military or operational innovation it contains. He then examines these compon...

In a remote village on the Dutch-German border, a young Catholic woman named Cunegonde tries to kidnap a baby to prevent it from being baptized in a Protestant church. When she is arrested, fellow Catholics stage an armed raid to free her from detention. These dramatic events of 1762 triggered a cycle of violence, starting a kind of religious war in the village and its surrounding region. Contradicting our current understanding, this war erupted at the height of the Age of Enlightenment, f...

Filled with photographs, both historic and contemporary, this engaging book looks at the industrial pioneers of northwestern Ontario, and the activities which brought them to the wilderness: surveying, railroading, lumber, gold, bush piloting, transportation, and hydro power. Rasky lets the pioneers tell their own story, through their own reminiscences, and by the monuments they have left behind. Published with the assistance of the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Culture, and the Onta...

In the inter war era, the rise of the largest political movement in modern French history, the powerful Croix de Feu (1927–1936), and its successor, the Parti Social Français, or PSF (1936–1945), led to a sharp rightward turn in France’s political culture. Political Belief in France, 1927–1945 traces the central role of women in this shift, arguing that they transformed the Croix de Feu/PSF from a paramilitary league for veterans into a social reform movement that sought to remake the poli...