History

`Intensely alive to the landscape; its pasts, people and creatures' Robert Macfarlane Take a journey into our ancient past. Explore (read more)

`Intensely alive to the landscape; its pasts, people and creatures' Robert Macfarlane Take a journey into our ancient past. Explore a long-lost landscape and gradually discover the minds, beliefs and cultural practices of those souls who lived on these lands thousands of years before you. Travelling the length and breadth of Britain, James Canton pursues his obsession with the physical traces of the ancient world: stone circles, flint arrowheads, sacred stones, gold, and a lost Roman road.

He ponders the features of the natural world that occupied ancient minds: the night sky, shooting stars, the rising and setting sun. Wandering to the furthest reaches of the islands, he finds an undeciphered standing stone north of Aberdeen and follows the first footsteps on the edge of a long-lost Ice Age land in the North Sea. As Canton walks the modern terrain, slowly understanding the ancient signs that lie within and beneath it, he weaves a gentle tale of discovery, showing how, beyond the superficial differences of life-style and culture, the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles were much closer to the present-day one than we might imagine.
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On a wet afternoon in September 1938, Neville Chamberlain stepped off an aeroplane and announced that his visit to Hitler had averted (read more)

On a wet afternoon in September 1938, Neville Chamberlain stepped off an aeroplane and announced that his visit to Hitler had averted the greatest crisis in recent memory.

It was, he later assured the crowd in Downing Street, `peace for our time'. Less than a year later, Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began. Appeasing Hitler is a compelling new narrative history of the disastrous years of indecision, failed diplomacy and parliamentary infighting that enabled Nazi domination of Europe. (hide)

The development of key methodologies for the study of battlefields in the USA in the 1980s inspired a generation of British and European (read more)

The development of key methodologies for the study of battlefields in the USA in the 1980s inspired a generation of British and European archaeologists to turn their attention to sites in their own countries. The end of the Cold War and key anniversaries of the World Wars inspired others, especially in the UK, to examine the material legacy of those conflicts before they disappeared. By 2000 the study of war was again firmly on the archaeological agenda.

The overall purpose of the book is to encourage proponents and practitioners of Conflict Archaeology to consider what it is for and how to develop it in the future.The central argument is that, at present , Conflict Archaeology is effectively divided into closed communities who do not interact to any large extent. These separate communities are divided by period and by nationality, so that a truly international Conflict Archaeology has yet to emerge. These divisions prevent the exchange of information and ideas across boundaries and thereby limit the scope of the field.
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It is the most famous military installation in the world. And no credible insider has ever divulged the truth about his time inside (read more)

It is the most famous military installation in the world. And no credible insider has ever divulged the truth about his time inside of it. Until now.

This is the first book based on interviews with scientists, pilots, and engineers - 58 in total - who provide an unprecedented look into the mysterious activities of a top-secret base, from the Cold War to today. With a jaw-dropping ending, it proves that facts are often more fantastic than fiction, especially when the distinction is almost impossible to make. Stocked 2.2.12 (hide)

On 17 September 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the growing roar of aeroplane engines. (read more)

On 17 September 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the growing roar of aeroplane engines. He went out on to his balcony above the flat landscape of southern Holland to watch the air armada of Dakotas and gliders carrying the British 1st Airborne and the American 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions. He gazed up in envy at this massive demonstration of paratroop power.

Operation Market Garden, the plan to end the war by capturing the bridges leading to the Lower Rhine and beyond, was a bold concept: the Americans thought it unusually bold for Field Marshal Montgomery. But could it ever have worked? The cost of failure was horrendous, above all for the Dutch, who risked everything to help. German reprisals were pitiless and cruel, and lasted until the end of the war.
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The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Culture in Early Modern England is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of current (read more)

The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Culture in Early Modern England is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of current research on popular culture in the early modern era. For the first time a detailed yet wide-ranging consideration of the breadth and scope of early modern popular culture in England is collected in one volume, highlighting the interplay of 'low' and 'high' modes of cultural production (while also questioning the validity of such terminology). The authors examine how popular culture impacted upon people's everyday lives during the period, helping to define how individuals and groups experienced the world.

Issues as disparate as popular reading cultures, games, food and drink, time, textiles, religious belief and superstition, and the function of festivals and rituals are discussed. This research companion will be an essential resource for scholars and students of early modern history and culture. (hide)

Auschwitz and Birkenau were separate from each other,by about a 45 minute walk. Auschwitz was adapted to hold political prisoners (read more)

Auschwitz and Birkenau were separate from each other,by about a 45 minute walk. Auschwitz was adapted to hold political prisoners in 1940 and evolved into a killing machine in 1941. Later that year a new site called Birkenau was found to extend the Auschwitz complex.

Here a vast complex of buildings were constructed to hold initially Russian POWs and later Jews as a labour pool for the surrounding industries including IG Farben. Following the January 1943 Wannsee Conference, Birkenau evolved into a murder factory using makeshift houses which were adapted to kill Jews and Russian POWs. Later due to sheer volume Birkenau evolved into a mass killing machine using gas chambers and crematoria, while Auschwitz, which still held prisoners, became the administrative centre.

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30/11/2016 (hide)

Pub Date:13/01/2015 - Do you remember washing in a tin bath by the fire, using outside lavatories and not having a television? Did (read more)

Pub Date:13/01/2015 - Do you remember washing in a tin bath by the fire, using outside lavatories and not having a television? Did you grow up in the 1950s and were you a teenager in the swinging sixties? If the Festival of Britain, food rationing and the Queen's coronation are among your earliest memories then you belong to the post-war baby boomer generation. How did we end up here, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, when it all just seems like yesterday? In this fascinating new trip down memory lane, Paul Feeney remembers what it has been like to live through the eventful second half of the twentieth century. This nostalgic journey through an era of change will resonate with anyone who began their innocent childhood years in austerity and has lived through a lifetime of ground-breaking events to the much changed Britain of today. (hide)

This is a reissue of the 2010 collection. First-hand accounts from the RAF pilots who took part in the Battle of Britain, one of (read more)

This is a reissue of the 2010 collection. First-hand accounts from the RAF pilots who took part in the Battle of Britain, one of the chief turning points of World War II. 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,' said Winston Churchill.

The 'few' were the nearly 3,000 RAF pilots who fought against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, which raged in the skies over southern England and the English Channel in the summer of 1940. With a new Prime Minister in Winston Churchill, Britain fought alone in Europe under the threat of invasion from Hitler's Germany. Douglas Bader, Flight Lt Richard Hillary, 'Ginger' Lacey, and Flight Lt Brian Kingcombe describe the strains they had to face as pilots - 'I didn't have butterflies in my stomach - I had vultures' - and the 'long, boring hours interspersed with moments of tremendous exhilaration'. (hide)

The defeat of the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain was thanks to the highly effective support network that lay behind the RAF's (read more)

The defeat of the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain was thanks to the highly effective support network that lay behind the RAF's Spitfire and Hurricane squadrons. Scientific, technical and organisational systems established in Britain before the war ensured that the nation was ready and able to defend itself against any would-be aggressor. Andy Saunders describes and illustrates the 'nuts and bolts' of how Britain - and the RAF in particular - fought back against the Luftwaffe in 1940, and won.

It also shows how the Luftwaffe was organised and how it, too, rose to the challenge. How science, technology and defence infrastructure helped the RAF win the Battle of Britain in 1940. 2015 is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. (hide)