Victorious Century

Victorious Century PDF Author: David Cannadine
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525557903
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 626

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Book Description
A sweeping history of nineteenth-century Britain by one of the world's most respected historians. "An evocative account . . .[Cannadine] tells his own story persuasively and exceedingly well.” —The Wall Street Journal To live in nineteenth-century Britain was to experience an astonishing and unprecedented series of changes. Cities grew vast; there were revolutions in transportation, communication, science, and work--all while a growing religious skepticism rendered the intellectual landscape increasingly unrecognizable. It was an exhilarating time, and as a result, most of the countries in the world that experienced these changes were racked by political and social unrest. Britain, however, maintained a stable polity at home, and as a result it quickly found itself in a position of global leadership. In this major new work, leading historian David Cannadine has created a bold, fascinating new interpretation of nineteenth-century Britain. Britain was a country that saw itself at the summit of the world and, by some measures, this was indeed true. It had become the largest empire in history: its political stability positioned it as the leader of the new global economy and allowed it to construct the largest navy ever built. And yet it was also a society permeated with doubt, fear, and introspection. Repeatedly, politicians and writers felt themselves to be staring into the abyss and what is seen as an era of irritating self-belief was in fact obsessed with its own fragility, whether as a great power or as a moral force. Victorious Century is a comprehensive and extraordinarily stimulating history--its author catches the relish, humor and staginess of the age, but also the dilemmas faced by Britain's citizens, ones we remain familiar with today.

Victorious Century

Victorious Century PDF Author: David Cannadine
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525557903
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 626

Get Book Here

Book Description
A sweeping history of nineteenth-century Britain by one of the world's most respected historians. "An evocative account . . .[Cannadine] tells his own story persuasively and exceedingly well.” —The Wall Street Journal To live in nineteenth-century Britain was to experience an astonishing and unprecedented series of changes. Cities grew vast; there were revolutions in transportation, communication, science, and work--all while a growing religious skepticism rendered the intellectual landscape increasingly unrecognizable. It was an exhilarating time, and as a result, most of the countries in the world that experienced these changes were racked by political and social unrest. Britain, however, maintained a stable polity at home, and as a result it quickly found itself in a position of global leadership. In this major new work, leading historian David Cannadine has created a bold, fascinating new interpretation of nineteenth-century Britain. Britain was a country that saw itself at the summit of the world and, by some measures, this was indeed true. It had become the largest empire in history: its political stability positioned it as the leader of the new global economy and allowed it to construct the largest navy ever built. And yet it was also a society permeated with doubt, fear, and introspection. Repeatedly, politicians and writers felt themselves to be staring into the abyss and what is seen as an era of irritating self-belief was in fact obsessed with its own fragility, whether as a great power or as a moral force. Victorious Century is a comprehensive and extraordinarily stimulating history--its author catches the relish, humor and staginess of the age, but also the dilemmas faced by Britain's citizens, ones we remain familiar with today.

Britain Against Napoleon

Britain Against Napoleon PDF Author: Roger Knight
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141977027
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 757

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Book Description
From Roger Knight, established by his multi-award winning book The Pursuit of Victory as 'an authority ... none of his rivals can match' (N.A.M. Rodger), Britain Against Napoleon is the first book to explain how the British state successfully organised itself to overcome Napoleon - and how very close it came to defeat. For more than twenty years after 1793, the French army was supreme in continental Europe, and the British population lived in fear of French invasion. How was it that despite multiple changes of government and the assassination of a Prime Minister, Britain survived and won a generation-long war against a regime which at its peak in 1807 commanded many times the resources and manpower? This book looks beyond the familiar exploits of the army and navy to the politicians and civil servants, and examines how they made it possible to continue the war at all. It shows the degree to which, as the demands of the war remorselessly grew, the whole British population had to play its part. The intelligence war was also central. Yet no participants were more important, Roger Knight argues, than the bankers and traders of the City of London, without whose financing the armies of Britain's allies could not have taken the field. The Duke of Wellington famously said that the battle which finally defeated Napoleon was 'the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life': this book shows how true that was for the Napoleonic War as a whole. Roger Knight was Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum until 2000, and now teaches at the Greenwich Maritime Institute at the University of Greenwich. In 2005 he published, with Allen Lane/Penguin, The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson, which won the Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military History, the Mountbatten Award and the Anderson Medal of the Society for Nautical Research. The present book is a culmination of his life-long interest in the workings of the late 18th-century British state.

Cultivating Victory

Cultivating Victory PDF Author: Cecilia Gowdy-Wygant
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822944251
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
A compelling study of the sea change brought about in politics, society, and gender roles during World Wars I and II by campaigns to recruit Women's Land Armies in Great Britain and the United States to cultivate victory gardens. Cecilia Gowdy-Wygant compares and contrasts the outcomes of war in both nations as seen through women's ties to labor, agriculture, the home, and the environment. She sheds new light on the cultural legacies left by the Women's Land Armies and their major role in shaping national and personal identities.

The First Victory

The First Victory PDF Author: Andrew Stewart
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300208553
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
A riveting new account of the long-overlooked achievement of British-led forces who, against all odds, scored the first major Allied victory of the Second World War Surprisingly neglected in accounts of Allied wartime triumphs, in 1941 British and Commonwealth forces completed a stunning and important victory in East Africa against an overwhelmingly superior Italian opponent. A hastily formed British-led force, never larger than 70,000 strong, advanced along two fronts to defeat nearly 300,000 Italian and colonial troops. This compelling book draws on an array of previously unseen documents to provide both a detailed campaign history and a fresh appreciation of the first significant Allied success of the war. Andrew Stewart investigates such topics as Britain's African wartime strategy; how the fighting forces were assembled (most from British colonies, none from the U.S.); General Archibald Wavell's command abilities and his difficult relationship with Winston Churchill; the resolute Italian defense at Keren, one of the most bitterly fought battles of the entire war; the legacy of the campaign in East Africa; and much more.

Seeking Victory on the Western Front

Seeking Victory on the Western Front PDF Author: Albert Palazzo
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803287747
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Palazzo's study is convincing in demonstrating that the British military command was not, contrary to the common belief, unwilling to adapt innovations in technology for use on the battlefield."-Virginia Quarterly Review.

Victory through Coalition

Victory through Coalition PDF Author: Elizabeth Greenhalgh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139448471
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Germany's invasion of France in August 1914 represented a threat to the great power status of both Britain and France. The countries had no history of co-operation, yet the entente they had created in 1904 proceeded by trial and error, via recriminations, to win a war of unprecedented scale and ferocity. Elizabeth Greenhalgh examines the huge problem of finding a suitable command relationship in the field and in the two capitals. She details the civil-military relations on each side, the political and military relations between the two powers, the maritime and industrial collaboration that were indispensable to an industrialised war effort and the Allied prosecution of war on the western front. Although it was not until 1918 that many of the war-winning expedients were adopted, Dr Greenhalgh shows that victory was ultimately achieved because of, rather than in spite of, coalition.

Britain and Victory in the Great War

Britain and Victory in the Great War PDF Author: Peter Liddle
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473891639
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 729

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Book Description
How can we begin to make sense of the Great War now that over 100 years have passed since it ended with the defeat of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman empire and Bulgaria, and the collapse of Tsarist Russia? The conflict had such a profound influence on world history that is it difficult to reconcile the different perspectives and draw clear conclusions. That is why this thought-provoking collection of original essays on the outcome of the war and its aftermath is of such value.It completes the trilogy of ground-breaking volumes conceived and edited by Peter Liddle which presents the latest scholarly thinking about the Great War from an international perspective. The first two volumes Britain Goes to War and Britain and the Widening War made this stimulating new writing accessible to a broad readership and this final volume has the same aim.A group of over twenty expert contributors reconsider the military reasons for the outcome of the fighting and look at the consequences for the principal nations involved. They explore the way the war and the peace settlement shaped the twentieth century and had an enduring impact within Europe and beyond.

Jackboot Britain

Jackboot Britain PDF Author: Daniel S. Fletcher
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781500556273
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 646

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Book Description
The Alternate History - What if Hitler beat the Brits? JACKBOOT BRITAIN is a new novel set in an alternate 1940 in which Nazi Germany was victorious over the British Empire. Jackboot Britain is a nightmare world; the book tells a harrowing tale of militarisation, dehumanisation, prejudice, power and war, as it follows the trials and tribulations of a range of characters from various walks of life, as they struggle to exist in a Europe - and occupied UK - ruled by the Germany of Adolf Hitler. From a platoon of captured British troops held as prisoners of war, to Major Jochen Wolf and the conflicted, and conflicting men of the SS in whose care they are placed; to the band of auxiliary partisans in the underground British resistance, anti-fascist veterans of the Spanish Civil War; to Naomi, a young, female Jewish teacher in Leeds and her clever, quirky male friend; Maisie a London shopgirl and Hans, an unwilling German soldier drafted to the Wehrmacht; Bill Wilson; ageing, monosyllabic alcoholic in a Bloomsbury pub; a humanist-libertarian journalist of renown; four young conscripts to the German Wehrmacht occupation force; Charlie, a disabled cockney street kid; the men of the SS Einsatzgruppen (action groups), whose 'police' work in occupied countries was a euphemism for murder and suppression; to the SS leaders themselves and their machinations for power and internecine intrigues, including "The Blond Beast", one of the 20th century's most notorious villains in SS and Police General Reinhard 'The Hangman' Heydrich himself... The tapestry of their lives is woven through the powerful tale of a dystopian world that could have been... Every aspect of ugliness and suppression associated with the barbarism of Nazi policy - from the genocidal aggression of the Security Police and SD in occupied territories to the devilish work in the shadows of the Gestapo secret police; the dehumanisation of entire races and those otherwise 'unsuitable' deemed 'life unworthy of life'; the institutionalisation of scientific racism, the glorification of war and military conquest and its effects on a generation raised under its influence; the persecutions, the lust for power; the awful internment system of the concentration camps and the savage lethality of German policy in every sphere of life is explored in this wide-ranging alternate history novel; a book that harkens to the hellish years of German atrocities across continental Europe, by showing the terrifying possibilities of what could have been in a Nazi-occupied Britain... Jackboot Britain depicts the grim realities of a Nazi Britain and Hitler's Europe through the lives and deaths, triumphs, setbacks and tragedies of this diverse range of characters, all of whom are caught up in the carnage and chaos of war in this story of love and loss, hope and fear, prejudice, cruelty and power. Each tale runs its course through a nightmare that seems unimaginable to the modern British sensibility, but that at one, disquieting moment in modern history, threatened to engulf the world whole. As each character manoeuvres in the dark shadow of National Socialism and its jackbooted armies, we see each story unfold as they near their own powerful conclusions, each trapped by the malevolent force that brought unparalleled suffering and chaos to the world. Jackboot Britain, by Daniel S. Fletcher (2011) - a debut novel.

The Phoney Victory

The Phoney Victory PDF Author: Peter Hitchens
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786724286
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Was World War II really the `Good War'? In the years since the declaration of peace in 1945 many myths have sprung up around the conflict in the victorious nations. In this book, Peter Hitchens deconstructs the many fables which have become associated with the narrative of the `Good War'. Whilst not criticising or doubting the need for war against Nazi Germany at some stage, Hitchens does query whether September 1939 was the right moment, or the independence of Poland the right issue. He points out that in the summer of 1939 Britain and France were wholly unprepared for a major European war and that this quickly became apparent in the conflict that ensued. He also rejects the retroactive claim that Britain went to war in 1939 to save the Jewish population of Europe. On the contrary, the beginning and intensification of war made it easier for Germany to begin the policy of mass murder in secret as well as closing most escape routes. In a provocative, but deeply-researched book, Hitchens questions the most common assumptions surrounding World War II, turning on its head the myth of Britain's role in a `Good War'.

Japan's Greatest Victory, Britain's Worst Defeat

Japan's Greatest Victory, Britain's Worst Defeat PDF Author: Masanobu Tsuji
Publisher: Spellmount, Limited Publishers
ISBN: 9781862271296
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This translation originally published: 1997.