England Great

When Ugandan President Idi Amin expelled the country's entire Asian population in 1972, more than 28,000 people from Britain's former colony arrived on airstrips around the country and began building new lives - but their incredible stories remained largely hidden. Fifty years later, first and second-generation testimony uncovers an under-explored period of history, touching on colonialism, immigration, identity and modern multiculturalism through the lens of individual experience.

"Au bord du gouffre du 20e siècle, quatre icônes mondiales ont incarné de manière exemplaire et jusqu'à aujourd'hui ce que cela signifie de mener une vie véritablement libre". Les années 1933 à 1943 marquent le chapitre le plus noir de la modernité européenne. Face à la catastrophe, quatre femmes philosophes, à l'orée de leur 30 ans, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Weil, Ayn Rand et Hannah Arendt, développent leurs idées visionnaires : sur la relation entre l'individu et la société, l'homme et la femme, le sexe et le genre, la liberté et le totalitarisme, Dieu et l'homme.

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.

The British have a relationship with their food that is unlike that of any other country. Once something that was never discussed in polite company, it is now something with which the nation is obsessed. But are we at last developing a food culture or are we just going through the motions? Eating for England is an entertaining, detailed, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek observation of the British and their food, their cooking, their eating, and how they behave in restaurants.

When Scotland Yard’s first detective branch was set up in 1842, crime was very different from today. The favoured murder weapon was the cut-throat razor; carrying a pocket watch was dangerous; the most significant clue at a murder scene could be the whereabouts of a candlestick or hat; large households (family, servants and lodgers) complicated many a case; and servants sometimes murdered their masters.

The Battle of Culloden in 1746 has gone down in history as the last major battle fought on British soil: a vicious confrontation between the English Royal Army and the Scottish forces supporting the Stuart claim to the throne. But this wasn't just a conflict between the Scots and the English: The battle was also part of a much larger campaign to protect the British Isles from the growing threat of a French invasion.

To live in 19th-century Britain was to experience an astonishing series of changes, of a kind for which there was simply no precedent. There were revolutions in transport, communication and work; cities grew vast; and scientific ideas made the intellectual landscape unrecognisable. This was an exhilarating time but also a horrifying one. In his new book, David Cannadine has created a bold, fascinating new interpretation of the British 19th century in all its energy and dynamism, darkness and vice.

Could you successfully be a Georgian? Find yourself immersed in the pivotal world of Georgian England, exciting times to live in. Everything was booming—the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the nascent Empire—in an era inhabited by Mary Shelley, the Romantic poets, and their contemporaries. Find everything you need to know in order to survive as a time traveler from today, undetected among the ordinary people: how to dress, behave yourself in public, earn a living, and find somewhere to live.

The year 1916 was one of the great turning-points in British history: as the youthful hopes of a generation were crushed in a desperate struggle to survive and traditional attitudes to authority were destroyed for ever. On paper, few battles have ever been so meticulously planned. Yet while there were good political reasons to launch a joint offensive with a French Army demoralised by huge casualties at Verdun, the raw troops on the ground knew nothing of that.

Reine d'Écosse six jours après sa naissance en 1542, mariée à François II et reine de France à dix-sept ans, veuve un an après, remariée à lord Darnley, amante du comte de Bothwell qui tuera Darnley, réfugiée auprès d'Elisabeth Ire qui la gardera captive pendant vingt ans, décapitée en 1587 pour s'être laissé prendre au piège d'une conspiration : Marie Stuart est l'une des figures les plus romanesques, les plus tragiques de l'histoire.

England's villages have survived, developed and thrived over hundreds of years. But what makes a village, and how has that changed over time? Take a charming and unexpected journey through the quirks of England's villages throughout the ages in the excellent company of Dr Ben Robinson, expert archaeologist.

Although rarely documented as the warmest of monarchs and often criticized for her surly attitude to motherhood, Queen Victoria did successfully heir nine children. By the late 19th century, she had over 30 surviving grandchildren. In this comprehensive delve into Victoria's offspring, Theo Aronson describes the intersection of cultures as princesses with British upbringings experienced the courts of Spain, Romania, Greece, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

In May 1940, Nazi Germany was master of continental Europe. The only European power still standing was Great Britain - and the all-conquering German armed forces stood poised to cross the Channel. Following the destruction of the RAF fighter forces, the sweeping of the Channel of mines, and the wearing down of the Royal Naval defenders, two German army groups were set to storm the beaches of southern England.

In Revolution, Peter Ackroyd takes listeners from William of Orange's accession following the Glorious Revolution to the Regency, when the flamboyant Prince of Wales ruled in the stead of his mad father, George III, and England was - again - at war with France, a war that would end with the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. Late Stuart and Georgian England marked the creation of the great pillars of the English state. The Bank of England was founded, as was the stock exchange.

Beginning with their introduction in the 11th century, and ending with their widespread abandonment in the 17th, Marc Morris explores many of the country's most famous castles, as well as some spectacular lesser-known examples. At times this is an epic tale, driven by characters like William the Conqueror, King John, and Edward I, full of sieges and conquest on an awesome scale.

Award-winning historian Simon Schama completes his monumental three-volume history of Britain, which accompanies the acclaimed television epic. In The Fate of Empire, Schama illuminates the period of British history from 1770-2000 through a variety of historical themes, including the advance of technology and industry, women's increasing role in society and the burgeoning British Empire.

With this audiobook, we want to let our listeners know how vibrant and lively (as well as deadly) life in Britain was during the perhaps wrongly-titled “Dark Ages”. With the end of the Roman Empire, the local Britons were left to their devices, and it would be several people groups from a peninsula in Central Europe that would come to dominate the island, making sure their presence was known through a series of kingdoms, battles, clashes, victories, and defeats.

Four Chancellors and a Funeral delivers more of Russell Jones's signature scathing wit, combining a detailed historical record of 2021 and 2022, with acerbic commentary, all of it leavened by jokes at the seemingly endless maelstrom of failures, nincompoops, and hypocrisies.

Here is the whole of recorded British royal history, from the legendary King Alfred the Great onwards, including the monarchies of England, Scotland, Wales and the United Kingdom for over a thousand years. Fascinating portraits are expertly woven into a history of division and eventual union of the British Isles - even royals we think most familiar are revealed in a new and sometimes surprising light.This edition includes biographies of the royals of recorded British history, plus an overview of the semi-

Orphans of Empire tells the story of what happened to the thousands of children who were raised at the London Foundling Hospital, Coram's brainchild, which opened in 1741 and grew to become the most famous charity in Georgian England. It provides vivid insights into the lives and fortunes of London's poorest children, from the earliest days of the Foundling Hospital to the mid-Victorian era, when Charles Dickens was moved by his observations of the charity's work to campaign on behalf of orphans.