Tim Ecott is a former BBC World Service correspondent specialising in Africa and the Indian Ocean. He has written for The Economist, The Times, Telegraph and Guardian and continues to contribute to BBC radio output on the World Service and Radio 4.For many years he has been a regular visitor to the Faroe Islands.

An island without a harbour, encircled by perilous cliffs and rising high above the wild Atlantic ocean, farmed by the same family for eight generations. What is it like to live at the edge of the world?In this marvel of quiet reflection and keen observation, Tim Ecott takes the reader to Stóra Dímun - an isolated island farm in the Faroe Islands with only two permanent residents. He finds a remarkable way of living; one where you're isolated but never truly alone,...

From Papantla in Mexico—"the city that perfumed the world"—to the Indian Ocean islands, Vanilla traces the story of the vanilla plant and its secretive trade.From the golden cups of Aztec emperors to the ice cream dishes of US presidents, vanilla has mystified and tantalized man for centuries. The only orchid that produces an agriculturally valuable crop, vanilla can mask unpleasant tastes and smells, but also makes pleasant tastes stronger, smoother, and ...

The acclaimed narrative history of the American home front during WWII, from the attack on Pearl Harbor through 1942.For Americans on the home front, the twelve months following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor comprised the darkest year of World War Two. Despite government attempts to disguise the magnitude of American losses, it was clear that the nation had suffered a nearly unbroken string of military setbacks in the Pacific; by the autumn of 1942, government...

D-Day - June 6, 1944 - was a pivotal day in human history. This was the great turning point of the Second World War, when the largest armada ever assembled took a third of a million Allied men across the English Channel.The invasion force of 150,000 troops from Britain, the United States, Canada and many other nations fighting on the Allied side on D-Day under the command of Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery landed on five beaches to spearhead Operation Overlord, the invasion of German-oc...

This, the fourth volume in Andrew Field's highly praised study of the Waterloo campaign from the French perspective, depicts in vivid detail the often neglected final phase the rout and retreat of Napoleon's army. The text is based exclusively on French eyewitness accounts which give an inside view of the immediate aftermath of the battle and carry the story through to the army's disbandment in late 1815. Many French officers and soldiers wrote more about the retreat than they did about th...

True, first-hand accounts of combat and soldiering from the men who fought for Napoleon Bonparte and the First French Empire: "Fascinating stuff" (Stuart Asquith, author of Military Modelling).The French side of the Napoleonic Wars is often presented from a strategic point of view, or in terms of military organization and battlefield tactics, or through officers' memoirs. Fighting for Napoleon: French Soldiers' Letters, 1799–1815, based o...

Rediscover Scottish history through the eyes of its most unique and outspoken women in this volume of entertaining tales from the eighteenth century to the twentieth.Annie Harrower-Gray introduces readers to three centuries of rebellious, innovative, and downright scandalous Scottish women. The whole of society appears, from ordinary laborers, prostitutes and factory hands to their more celebrated sisters and even witches, bodysnatchers, and female Jacobites. The ta...

The true story of how highly-trained Edwardian women in the First World War "coped with their charges as the bombs rained down" ( Daily Express).In 1912, Norland children's nurse Kate Fox was travelling by train heading to the British military station at Nowshera on the Afghan border to care for the premature baby born to the base's commanding officer. Two years later, Kate was escaping from Germany in the first days of the Great War, leaving behind her ado...

"A radical re-assessment . . . This is fascinating stuff . . . a most useful addition to the Waterloo—and indeed Napoleonic—bookshelf."—Military Modelling MagazineMore has probably been written about the Waterloo campaign than almost any other in history. It was the climax of the Napoleonic Wars and forms a watershed in both European and world history. However, the lethal combination of national bias, willful distortion and simple error has unfortunately led to the...

"A fascinating account of the gathering and dissemination of news from the end of the Middle Ages to the French Revolution" and the rise of the newspaper (Glenn Altschuler, The Huffington Post).Long before the invention of printing, let alone the daily newspaper, people wanted to stay informed. In the pre-industrial era, news was mostly shared through gossip, sermons, and proclamations. The age of print brought pamphlets, ballads, and the first news-sheets...

Here Is Where chronicles Andrew Carroll’s eye-opening – and at times hilarious -- journey across America to find and explore unmarked historic sites where extraordinary moments occurred and remarkable individuals once lived. Sparking the idea for this book was Carroll’s visit to the spot where Abraham Lincoln’s son was saved by the brother of Lincoln’s assassin. Carroll wondered, How many other unmarked places are there where intriguing events have unfolded and that w...