Solitude has always had an ambivalent status: the capacity to enjoy being alone can make sociability bearable, but those predisposed to solitude are often viewed with suspicion or pity.Drawing on a wide array of literary and historical sources, David Vincent explores how people have conducted themselves in the absence of company over the last three centuries. He argues that the ambivalent nature of solitude became a prominent concern in the modern era. For intellectuals in the roma...

Privacy: A Short History provides a vital historical account of an increasingly stressed sphere of human interaction. At a time when the death of privacy is widely proclaimed, distinguished historian, David Vincent, describes the evolution of the concept and practice of privacy from the Middle Ages to the present controversy over digital communication and state surveillance provoked by the revelations of Edward Snowden.Deploying a range of vivid primary material, he discus...

The Fatal Breath is the first full-scale history of the Covid-19 pandemic in Britain. Deploying a rich archive of personal testimonies together with a wide range of research reports and official data, it presents a moving and challenging account of the crisis that enveloped Britain (and the world) in the spring of 2020.With sensitivity, care, and an historian’s critical eye, David Vincent places the pandemic in context. While much contemporary commentary has assumed people...

The home run has changed the game of baseball, moving it into a sport where might makes right and fans clamor for the clout. Home Runs Most Wanted™: The Top 10 Book of Monumental Dingers, Prodigious Swingers, and Everything Long-Ball celebrates all there is about the home run, from the folks that hit it, the guys that serve it up, and even the voices proclaiming, Its outta here!David Vincent, called The Sultan of Swat Stats by ESPN, brings it all to you in this fact-filled ...

The home run is indeed baseball's ultimate weapon. It can change a game in a heartbeat, making a tight game into a blowout or a seemingly easy win into a nail-biter. Homers are majestic, powerful, and awe inspiring. And sluggers are the sport's biggest stars, from the days of Babe Ruth through Barry Bonds.David Vincent, called The Sultan of Swat Stats by ESPN, delves into the long history of the home run with great detail and color. He starts when the rules of the game were highly...

'I Hope I Don't Intrude' takes its title from the catch-phrase of the eponymous hero of the 1825 play Paul Pry, which was an immense success on the London stage and then rapidly in New York and around the English-speaking world. It tackles the complex, multi-faceted subject of privacy in nineteenth-century Britain by examining the way in which the tropes, language, and imagery of the play entered public discourse about privacy in the rest of the century. The volume is not...

First published in 1981, Bread, Knowledge and Freedom is a study of 142 working class autobiographies all of which cover some part of the period between 1790 and 1850. It is a full-scale examination of a form of source material that is significantly extensive. The book illustrates many aspects of ordinary working-class family life as well as the working-class pursuit of knowledge and literacy and the attempts of the middle-class educators to impose their notion of ‘useful knowledg...

The year 1917 finds Russia in complete chaos as the long anticipated winds of revolution finally sweep across the country. The Tsar, Nicholas II, has been forced to abdicate and he and his family have been sent into exile in Siberia. Meanwhile, throughout Russia numerous plans are being formulated to free the Romanovs from their captivity. One of these plans comes to involve Natalya Karakova, once a leading light in Russian high society. But now, she and her husband, Constantine, find them...

While this is a work of fiction, it is based on actual events that took place during the time of Napoleon Bonaparte. Therefore, some of the characters in this book are based on historical figures that took part in these events. Other characters are entirely fictitious and are not meant to resemble anyone known or unknown to the author.

Lord Bainbridge is a love story, but a love story of a different kind. Lord Jeremy Bainbridge is a young Englishman of the upper class. He is also a homosexual in a time when society demanded harsh penalties for those who dared to indulge in the love story that dare not speak its name. But Jeremy Bainbridge is determined to live the life he has been dealt. He finds himself on board the Titanic on her fateful maiden voyage. There, he meets and falls in love with a young Irishman, Tom Kenned...

I Am Morbid tells the astounding story of David Vincent, former bassist and singer with Morbid Angel, and now outlaw country performer and leader of the I Am Morbid supergroup. Written with the bestselling author Joel McIver, it’s an autobiography that transcends the heavy metal category by its very nature.Much more than a mere memoir, I Am Morbid is an instruction manual for life at the sharp end—a gathering of wisdom distilled into ten acute les...

Oxford-trained professor Fr. David Meconi transports you to the world of the early Christians, where you will meet the great theologians who indelibly shaped Christianity.Join Fr. David Meconi, multiple award-winning professor and Oxford-educated theologian on a journey through the most formative years of Christianity.Through 10 erudite and lively lectures, you will explore the formative centuries of the Church (100-800 C.E.) and the great figures whose lives and writings i...