British History

The British monarchy is at a turning point. Concise and engaging, this book charts the very beginnings of British reign through to the longest serving monarch, Queen Elizabeth II—and looks forward to the reign of King Charles III. Much more than a linear history, this is the intertwined story of royalty and state, of divisions, invasions, rivalries, death and glory; the story of nation fates tied with the personal endeavours of monarchs through the ages. This book is a necessary and comprehensive guide to the British Monarchy and how it has shaped history—and our lives today.

More than two centuries after Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian led a mutiny against Lieutenant William Bligh on a small, armed transport vessel called Bounty, the true story of this enthralling adventure has become obscured by the legend. Combining vivid characterization and deft storytelling, Caroline Alexander shatters the centuries-old myths surrounding this story.

This book is an example of Alternative History. That, in essence, is asking what the future could be like. It suggests the US could have become a Dominion of America. Call this standard history with a twist, or even mythology in part. It is certainly historical material, told in fictional fashion.

This is a revised and updated edition of an award-winning book, recognized as the authoritative work on the subject of British food. It is a breathtaking attempt to trace the changes to and influences on food in Britain from the Black Death through the Enclosures, the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of Capitalism to the present day.

As World War II raged into its second year, Britain sought a powerful ally to join its cause - but the American public was sharply divided on the subject. The Canadian-born MI6 officer William Stephenson, with his knowledge and influence in North America, was chosen to change their minds by any means necessary.

Fourteen-year-old Rachel Marsh is nanny to John and Abigail Adams' children and witnesses firsthand how tension builds in the feisty New England town in the two years before it erupts in the Boston Massacre. Friends become foes and families divide as British troops arrive in 1768 to force the outspoken Bostonians to toe the line and obey the British government.

How did we get here, to this time and place in history? Are we repeating history's mistakes because we did not learn about the pivotal events that shaped the modern world? This three-book history course helps you quickly understand the nuances and the impact of three crucial periods portrayed in countless films: the Crusades and of the rise and fall of two great empires, the Roman and British.

The British Secret Service has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded in myth since it was created 100 years ago. Our understanding of what it is to be a spy has been largely defined by the fictional worlds of James Bond and John le Carre. MI6 provides a unique and unprecedented insight into this secret world and the reality that lies behind the fiction.

World domination is a vision most kings, queens, and emperors can only dream of. The only one to ever come close to this impossible level of prestige is none other than the legendary British Empire. Today, the British Army is one of the most powerful fighting forces in the world. Naturally, the history and traditions behind this army are also impressive. Its soldiers once created and defended a global empire, and during the Second World War, it was one of the leading nations standing against the brutal Axis forces, leading the way in the greatest seaborne invasion in military history.

He is one of the most reviled English kings in history. He drove his kingdom to the brink of civil war a dozen times in less than twenty years. He allowed his male lovers to rule the kingdom. He led a great army to the most ignominious military defeat in English history. He was Edward II, and this book tells his story. Kathryn Warner strips away the myths which have been created about him over the centuries, and provides a far more accurate and vivid picture of him than has previously been seen.

Prior to World War II, Josephine Baker was a music-hall diva renowned for her singing and dancing, her beauty and sexuality; she was the most highly paid female performer in Europe. When the Nazis seized her adopted city, Paris, she was banned from the stage, along with all "negroes and Jews". Yet, instead of returning to America, she vowed to stay and to fight the Nazi evil. Overnight she went from performer to Resistance spy. In Agent Josephine best-selling author Damien Lewis uncovers this little known history of the famous singer's life.

Most anyone who has received a basic education in world history knows the story of how "in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." Most also know that Christopher Columbus made first contact with the Americas while searching for a water route to Asia. However, far fewer people remember that the search for such a route continued for centuries after Columbus' death.

What happened when Jane Austen’s heroines and heroes were finally wed? Marriage is at the center of Jane Austen’s novels. The pursuit of husbands and wives, advantageous matches, and, of course, love itself, motivate her characters and continue to fascinate people today. But what were love and marriage like in reality for ladies and gentlemen in Regency England? Rory Muir uncovers the excitements and disappointments of courtship and the pains and pleasures of marriage, drawing on fascinating first-hand accounts as well as novels of the period.

2.6 billion people are inhabitants of former British colonies. The empire's influence upon the quarter of the planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound: from the spread of Christianity by missionaries to the shaping international law. Even today, 1 in 3 people drive on the left hand side of the road, an artifact of the British empire. Yet Britain's idea of its imperial history and the world's experience of it are two very different things. Empireworld explores the ways in which British Empire has come to shape the modern world.

Taking a similar approach to his successful If Rome Hadn't Fallen, Timothy Venning explores the various decision points in a fascinating period of British history and the alternative paths that it might have taken. Dr. Timothy Venning starts within an outline of the process by which much of Britain came to be settled by Germanic tribes after the end of Roman rule, as far as it can be determined from the sparse and fragmentary sources. He then moves on to discuss a series of scenarios, which might have altered the course of subsequent history dramatically.

The British East India Company served as one of the key players in the formation of the British Empire. From its origins as a trading company struggling to keep up with its superior Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish competitors to its tenure as the ruling authority of the Indian subcontinent to its eventual hubristic downfall, the East India Company serves as a lens through which to explore the much larger economic and social forces that shaped the formation of a global British Empire.

These were among the questions that philosophers wrestled with in mid-twentieth-century Britain, a period shadowed by war and the rise of fascism. In response to these events, thinkers such as Philippa Foot (originator of the famous trolley problem), Isaiah Berlin, Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Anscombe, Gilbert Ryle, and J. L. Austin aspired to a new level of watchfulness and self-awareness about language as a way of keeping philosophy true to everyday experience.

Originally published in 1985, Outposts is Simon Winchester's journey to find the vanishing empire, "on which the sun never sets". In the course of a three-year, 100,000 mile journey - from the chill of the Antarctic to the blue seas of the Caribbean, from the South of Spain and the tip of China to the utterly remote specks in the middle of gale-swept oceans - he discovered such romance and depravity, opulence and despair that he was inspired to write what may be the last contemporary account of the British empire.

Thanks to its commercial complexion and the power invested in a board of directors, British rule in India was characterized by economic monopolies, aggressive trade practices, punitive taxation, and the impoverishment of vast regions of India. Much of the company's industry was based on a policy of producing and exporting raw materials from India, and importing manufactured goods to satisfy an almost unlimited local market.

After its maiden flight on 5 January 1941, Lancaster Chief Test Pilot Sam Browne said, ‘Oh boy, oh boy. What an aircraft!’ With a maximum weight of over 30 tonnes, far heavier than the RAF’s previous generation of bomber, the standard version could lift, on average, 14,000 lbs of bombs. Britain was ready to take the aerial war to Nazi Germany in a deadly fashion. During the course of the Second World War, 7,377 Lancaster bombers were built, flying a total of 156,000 sorties and dropped 618,378 tonnes of bombs on German cities.