In the years after the Civil War, the banks, railroads, and industrial corporations of Gilded?Age America, abetted by a corrupt political system, concentrated vast wealth in the hands of the few and made poverty the fate of many. In response, a group...

British maritime history in the age of sail is full of the deeds of officers like Nelson but has given little voice to plain, "illiterate" seamen. Now Stephen Taylor draws on published and unpublished memoirs, letters, and naval records, including co...

On the morning of July 1, 1800, a surveyor and mapmaker named Cayetano Diaz opened the window of his study in Guatemala City to find a horrific sight: a pair of severed breasts. Offering a meticulously researched and evocative account of the quest to...

The Victorian era saw remarkable economic growth and a rise in real wages. But not everyone shared in the nation's prosperity. Many families continued to live in grinding poverty with women and children usually faring worst. In this incisive account...

In this illuminating book, Abram Van Engen shows how the phrase "City on a Hill", from a 1630 sermon by Massachusetts Bay governor John Winthrop, shaped the story of American exceptionalism in the twentieth century. By tracing the history of Winthro...

<p>The ancient Greeks hard-wired a tragic sensibility into their culture. By looking disaster squarely in the face, by understanding just how badly things could spiral out of control, they sought to create a communal sense of responsibility and coura...

What did it mean to be 'civilized' in Early Modern England? Keith Thomas's seminal studies "Religion and the Decline of Magic", "Man and the Natural World", and "The Ends of Life", explored the beliefs, values and social practices of the years bet...

A school teacher at the start of the war, Harry Ree renounced his former pacifism with the fall of France in 1940. He was deployed into a secret branch of the British army and parachuted into central France in April 1943. Harry showed a particular t...

A distinguished historian of Spain and Europe provides an enlightening account of the development of nationalist and separatist movements in contemporary Catalonia and Scotland. This first sustained comparative study uncovers the similarities and the...

Culture was integral to the smooth running of the Third Reich. In the years preceding WWII, a wide variety of artistic forms were used to instill a Nazi ideology in the German people and to manipulate the public perception of Hitler's enemies. During...