A Brief History of Italy

A Brief History of Italy PDF Author: Jeremy Black
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472140885
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book Here

Book Description
'Jeremy Black skilfully sketches social, cultural and political trends' - Christina Hardyment, Times audiobook of the week 'A remarkable mixture of cold history, wide culture and personal experience' Ciro Paoletti, Secretary General of the Italian Commission of Military History Despite the Roman Empire's famous 500-year reign over Europe, parts of Africa and the Middle East, Italy does not have the same long national history as states such as France or England. Divided for much of its history, Italy's regions have been, at various times, parts of bigger, often antagonistic empires, notably those of Spain and Austria. In addition, its challenging and varied terrain made consolidation of political control all the more difficult. This concise history covers, in very readable fashion, the formative events in Italy's past from the rise of Rome, through a unified country in thrall to fascism in the first half of the twentieth century right up to today. The birthplace of the Renaissance and the place where the Baroque was born, Italy has always been a hotbed of culture. Within modern Italy country there is fierce regional pride in the cultures and identities that mark out Tuscany, Rome, Sicily and Venice to name just a few of Italy's many famous regions. Jeremy Black draws on the diaries, memoirs and letters of historic travellers to Italy to gain insight into the passions of its people, first chronologically then regionally. In telling Italy's story, Black examines what it is that has given Italians such cultural clout - from food and drink, music and fashion, to art and architecture - and explores the causes and effects of political events, and the divisions that still exist today.

A Brief History of Italy

A Brief History of Italy PDF Author: Jeremy Black
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472140885
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book Here

Book Description
'Jeremy Black skilfully sketches social, cultural and political trends' - Christina Hardyment, Times audiobook of the week 'A remarkable mixture of cold history, wide culture and personal experience' Ciro Paoletti, Secretary General of the Italian Commission of Military History Despite the Roman Empire's famous 500-year reign over Europe, parts of Africa and the Middle East, Italy does not have the same long national history as states such as France or England. Divided for much of its history, Italy's regions have been, at various times, parts of bigger, often antagonistic empires, notably those of Spain and Austria. In addition, its challenging and varied terrain made consolidation of political control all the more difficult. This concise history covers, in very readable fashion, the formative events in Italy's past from the rise of Rome, through a unified country in thrall to fascism in the first half of the twentieth century right up to today. The birthplace of the Renaissance and the place where the Baroque was born, Italy has always been a hotbed of culture. Within modern Italy country there is fierce regional pride in the cultures and identities that mark out Tuscany, Rome, Sicily and Venice to name just a few of Italy's many famous regions. Jeremy Black draws on the diaries, memoirs and letters of historic travellers to Italy to gain insight into the passions of its people, first chronologically then regionally. In telling Italy's story, Black examines what it is that has given Italians such cultural clout - from food and drink, music and fashion, to art and architecture - and explores the causes and effects of political events, and the divisions that still exist today.

History of Portugal

History of Portugal PDF Author: A. H. de Oliveira Marques
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description


A Concise History of Portugal

A Concise History of Portugal PDF Author: David Birmingham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521536868
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Get Book Here

Book Description
This concise, illustrated history of Portugal offers an introduction to the people and culture of the country, its empire, and to its search for economic modernisation, political stability and international partnership. The book studies the effects of the vast wealth mined from Portuguese Brazil, the growth of the wine trade, and the evolution of international ties. The Portuguese Revolution of 1820 to 1851 created a liberal monarchy, but in 1910 the king was overthrown and, by 1926, had been replaced by a dictatorship. In 1975 Portugal withdrew from its African colonies and turned north to become a democratic member of the European Community in 1986. Researched during the years which followed the fall of Portugal's dictators in 1974, this book has become the standard single-volume work. The second edition brings the story up to date and discusses the state of historical writing on Portugal at the turn of the millennium.

A Short History of Mozambique

A Short History of Mozambique PDF Author: M. D. D. Newitt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190847425
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Get Book Here

Book Description
A splendidly written portrait of Mozambique in the colonial and post-colonial eras, by the premier historian of the country.

A History of Spain and Portugal

A History of Spain and Portugal PDF Author: Stanley G. Payne
Publisher: [Madison] : University of Wisconsin Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412

Get Book Here

Book Description


Short History of Europe

Short History of Europe PDF Author: Gordon Kerr
Publisher: Oldacastle Books
ISBN: 184243666X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 130

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 to the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, an accessible history of the people, ideas, institutions, and events that have shaped Europe during the last 1,200 years This fascinating history for beginners provides a coherent map of the jumbled history of Europe and the European idea that has led up to this point. A continent of countless disparate peoples, races, and nations, governed by different ideas, philosophies, religions, and attitudes, Europe nonetheless has a common thread of history running through it, stitching the lands and peoples of its past and present into one fabric and held together by the continent’s great institutions: the Church of Rome, the Holy Roman Empire, the European Union, individual monarchies, trade organizations, and social movements. However, people have always harbored aspirations to make this vast territory one. The Romans came close and a few centuries later, the foundations for a great European state were laid with the creation of the Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon overreached himself in attempting to create a European-wide Empire—as did Adolf Hitler. Now, Europe is as close as it ever has been to being one entity, yet Europeans still cling to national independence.

A History of Spain & Portugal

A History of Spain & Portugal PDF Author: William Christopher Atkinson
Publisher: [Harmondsworth, Middlesex ; Baltimore] : Penguin Books
ISBN:
Category : Portugal
Languages : en
Pages : 390

Get Book Here

Book Description
Attempts to show as a whole the Peninsula made up of Spain and Portugal, with the slow unfolding of a pattern of society and an attitude to life still subtly distinct from those north of the Pyrenees. The successive occupations of Roman, Visigoth and Muslim span between them more than a thousand years. The Peninsula's great contribution to the modern age was the opening up of the New World in the west by Spain, and of new routes to the east by Portugal. Over the last century and a half the history of both peoples provides a case-study in the esential relativity of forms of government.

The Portuguese

The Portuguese PDF Author: Barry Hatton
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
ISBN: 1908493399
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Get Book Here

Book Description
Portugal is an established member of the European Union, one of the founders of the euro currency and a founder member of NATO. Yet it is an inconspicuous and largely overlooked country on the continent's south-west rim. In the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Age of Discovery the Portuguese led Europe out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic and they brought Asia and Europe together. Evidence of their one-time four-continent empire can still be felt, not least in the Portuguese language which is spoken by more than 220 million people from Brazil, across parts of Africa to Asia. Analyzing present-day society and culture, The Portuguese also considers the nation's often tumultuous past. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake was one of Europe’s greatest natural disasters, strongly influencing continental thought and heralding Portugal’s extended decline. The Portuguese also weathered Europe’s longest dictatorship under twentieth-century ruler António Salazar. A 1974 military coup, called the Carnation Revolution, placed the Portuguese at the centre of Cold War attentions. Portugal’s quirky relationship with Spain, and with its oldest ally England, is also scrutinized. Portugal, which claims Europe’s oldest fixed borders, measures just 561 by 218 kilometres . Within that space, however, it offers a patchwork of widely differing and beautiful landscapes. With an easygoing and seductive lifestyle expressed most fully in their love of food, the Portuguese also have an anarchical streak evident in many facets of contemporary life. A veteran journalist and commentator on Portugal, the author paints an intimate portrait of a fascinating and at times contradictory country and its people.

Portugal

Portugal PDF Author: José H. Saraiva
Publisher: Carcanet Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book Here

Book Description
An illustrated brief history of Portugal written for non-specialist foreign readers. Also included in the book is a historical gazetteer, short biographies, chronological tables and maps.

The History of the Siege of Lisbon

The History of the Siege of Lisbon PDF Author: José Saramago
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547540345
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Get Book Here

Book Description
A proofreader realizes his power to edit the truth on a whim, in a “brilliantly original” novel by a Nobel Prize winner (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Raimundo Silva is a middle-aged, celibate clerk, proofing manuscripts for a respectable publishing house. Fluent in Portuguese, he has been assigned to work on a standard history of the country, and the twelfth-century king who laid siege to Lisbon. In a moment of subversive daring, Raimundo decides to change just one single word of text—a capricious revision that completely undoes the past. When discovered, his insolent disregard for facts appalls his employers—save for his new editor, Maria Sara. She suggests that Rainmundo take his transgressions even further. Through Rainmundo and Maria’s eyes, what transpires is an alternate view of history and a colorful reinvention of a debatable truth. It’s a serpentine journey through time where past and present converge, fact becomes myth, and fiction and reality blur—especially for Rainmundo and Maria themselves, who begin to find themselves erotically drawn to each other. “Walter Mitty has nothing on Raimundo Silva . . . this hypnotic tale is a great comic romp through history, language and the imagination.” —Publishers Weekly Translated by Giovanni Pontiero