History

Richardson supplies a new translation and transcription (which incorporates the most important manuscript variants) of the most famous of all ancient Mesopotamian texts. He also provides a complete lexical analysis of every word that is used in it. The edition covers the prologue and epilogue as well as the laws themselves. Students of the Bible, ancient Near Eastern law and general Semitics are now provided with an indispensable reference tool in a convenient form. The detailed information in the glossary, where the full context of every quotation is given, will also be a tremendous help to those who want to learn or revisit Akkadian.

Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, and his companion Enkidu are the only heroes to have survived from the ancient literature of Babylon, immortalized in this epic poem that dates back to the 3rd millennium BC. Together they journey to the Spring of Youth, defeat the Bull of Heaven and slay the monster Humbaba. When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh's grief and fear of death are such that they lead him to undertake a quest for eternal life. A timeless tale of morality, tragedy and pure adventure, The Epic of Gilgamesh is a landmark literary exploration of man's search for immortality.

Compiled in China in the fourth-third centuries B.C.E., The Book of Lord Shang argues for a new powerful government to penetrate society and turn every man into a diligent tiller and valiant soldier. Creating a "rich state and a strong army" will be the first step toward unification of "All-under-Heaven." These ideas served the state of Qin that eventually created the first imperial polity on Chinese soil. In this new translation, The Book of Lord Shang's intellectual boldness and surprisingly modern-looking ideas shine through, underscoring the text's vibrant contribution to global political thought. The Book of Lord Shang is attributed to the political theorist Shang Yang and his followers. It epitomizes the ideology of China's so-called Legalist School of thought. In the ninety years since the work's previous translation, major breakthroughs in studies of the book's dating and context have recast our understanding of its messages. This edition applies these advances to a whole new reading of the text's content and function in the sociopolitical life of its times and subsequent centuries. This fully annotated translation is ideal for newcomers to the book while also guiding early Chinese scholars and comparatists in placing the work within a timeline of influence. It highlights the text's practical success and its impact on the political thought and political practice in traditional and modern China.

'The greatest historian that ever lived'Such was Macaulay's verdict on Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC) and his history of the Peloponnesian War, the momentous struggle between Athens and Sparta as rival powers and political systems that lasted for twenty-seven years from 431 to 404 BC, involved virtually the whole of the Greek world, and ended in the fall of Athens. Thucydides himself was a participant in the war; to his history he brings an awesome intellect, brilliant narrative, and penetrating analysis of the natureof power, as it affects both states and individuals.Of his own work Thucydides wrote: 'I shall be content if [my history] is judged useful by those who will want to have a clear understanding of what happened - and, such is the human condition, will happen again ... It was composed as a permanent legacy, not a showpiece for a single hearing.' So it has proved. Of the prose writers of Greece and Rome Thucydides has had more lasting influence on western thought than all but Plato and Aristotle. This new edition combines a masterly translationwith comprehensive supporting material.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This translation ofThe Iliadequals Fitzgerald's earlierOdysseyin power and imagination. It recreates the original action as conceived by Homer, using fresh and flexible blank verse that is both lyrical and dramatic.

Letters on England gathers together Voltaire's essays about his time in England between 1726 and 1728. Comparable to Alexis De Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Voltaire looks at English culture as an outsider, giving its culture, society and governing institutions a favorable comparison to their French counterparts.

How does a person learn a second language? In this book, Marysia Johnson proposes a new model of second language acquisition (SLA) - a model that shifts the focus from language competence (the ability to pass a language exam) to language performance (using language competently in real-life contexts). Johnson argues that current SLA theory and research is heavily biased in the direction of the cognitive and experimental scientific tradition. She draws on Vygotsky's sociocultural theory and Bakhtin's literary theory to construct an alternative framework for second language theory, research, teaching, and testing. The origin of second language acquisition is not located exclusively in the learner's mind, the author says, but in dialogical interaction conducted in a variety of settings.

The most complete autobiography of Yoshida Shigeru available in English, this expanded translation of his memoirs traces the remarkable life and times of one of Japan's most powerful and influential figures. Yoshida (1878–1967), who served in China and Europe as a career diplomat, closely linked with the key political leaders who shaped the world in Japan's most tumultuous years in the first half of the twentieth century. He returned to politics to rebuild Japan as a five-time prime minister after the devastation of World War II.

Written when Engels was only twenty-four, and inspired in particular by his time living among the poor in Manchester, this forceful polemic explores the staggering human cost of the Industrial Revolution in Victorian England. Engels paints an unforgettable picture of daily life in the new industrial towns, and for miners and agricultural workers--depicting overcrowded housing, abject poverty, child labour, sexual exploitation, dirt and drunkenness--in a savage indictment of the greed of the bourgeoisie. His fascinating later preface, written for the first English edition of 1892 and included here, brought the story up to date in the light of forty years' further reflection. A masterpiece of committed reporting and an impassioned call to arms, this is one of the great pioneering works of social history.   Based on the original translation by Florence Wischnewetzky, this volume is edited by Victor Kiernan, whose foreword considers Engels's friendship with Marx, and the book's position as a seminal work of socialism. Also included are notes, a detailed index, new chronology and further reading and a revised forward.  

The Church History of Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea was a 4th-century pioneer work giving a chronological account of the development of Early Christianity from the 1st century to the 4th century. It was written in Koine Greek, and survives also in Latin, Syriac and Armenian manuscripts.

Res Gestae Divi Augusti The Achievements of the Divine Augustus

The Alexiad is a medieval historical and biographical text written around the year 1148, by the Byzantine historian and princess Anna Komnene, daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos.

By exposing the perversion, repression, corruption, and injustice at the heart of Justinian's regime, Prokopios' The Secret History destroyed forever that emperor's reputation as the great and benevolent ruler of a vast Byzantine state. Faithfully rendered here in blunt and idiomatic English, Prokopios' tell-all is as shocking today as it was in the sixth century. Kaldellis' substantial Introduction addresses, among other topics, the historical background to The Secret History ; Prokopios' literary style and major themes; and the relationships between Prokopios, Justinian, and Empress Theodora. Maps, genealogies, a glossary, and a selection of related texts (including excerpts from Prokopios' Wars and Buildings and several contemporary documents) enhance and support the reading of this scandalous and suspenseful book.

The History of the Prophets and Kings, more commonly known as Tarikh al-Tabari or Tarikh-i Tabari is an Arabic-language historical chronicle written by the Persian historian Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari. It begins with the Creation to 915 AD, and contains detail concerning Muslim and Middle Eastern history.

Documents published and unpublished, particularly journals kept aboard the ships, including the newly-discovered Leicester journal, with drawings of episodes made by the voyage's artist. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1981.

'A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought...but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.'When Machiavelli's brief treatise on Renaissance statecraft and princely power was posthumously published in 1532, it generated a debate that has raged unabated until the present day. Based upon Machiavelli's first-hand experience as an emissary of the Florentine Republic to the courts of Europe,The Prince analyses the usually violent means by which men seize, retain, and lose political power. Machiavelli added a dimension of incisive realism to one of the major philosophical and political issues of his time, especially the relationship between public deeds and private morality. His bookprovides a remarkably uncompromising picture of the true nature of power, no matter in what era or by whom it is exercised.This fluent new translation is accompanied by comprehensive notes and an introduction that considers the true purpose of The Prince and dispels some of the myths associated with it.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ideas about society, culture, and government are pivotal in the history of political thought. His works are as controversial as they are relevant today. This volume brings together three of Rousseau's most important political writings--The Social Contract and The First Discourse (Discourse on the Sciences and Arts) and The Second Discourse (Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality)--and presents essays by major scholars that shed light on the dimensions and implications of these texts. Susan Dunn's introductory essay underlines the unity of Rousseau's political thought and explains why his ideas influenced Jacobin revolutionaries in France but repelled American revolutionaries across the ocean. Gita May's essay discusses Rousseau as cultural critic. Robert N. Bellah explores Rousseau's attempt to resolve the tension between the individual's desire for freedom and the obligations that society imposes. David Bromwich analyzes Rousseau as a psychologist of the human self. And Conor Cruise O'Brien takes on the "noxious," "deranged" Rousseau, excoriated by Edmund Burke but admired by Robespierre and Thomas Jefferson. Written from different, even opposing perspectives, these lucid essays convey a sense of the vital and contentious debate surrounding Rousseau and his legacy. For this edition Susan Dunn has provided a new translation of the Discourse on the Sciences and Arts and has revised a previously published translation of The Social Contract.

The Communist Manifesto, originally the Manifesto of the Communist Party, is an 1848 political document by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Here are the words of the man who led Italy to fascism and aided Hitler during the war, written in early 1944 as it all began to fall apart. A fascinating historical document of first-rate importance, these memoirs come from his personal account (annotated but unaltered) of the events immediately preceding and following the capitulation of the Italian armies and the collapse of his regime. Included as an appendix: the final conversation with the Cardinal of Milan three days before "Il Duce's" execution by Italian partisans.

For this book R.R. Palmer has translated selections from the abundant writings of the versatile French political figure and writer Marc-Antoine Jullien, weaving them together with his own extensive commentary into an absorbing narrative of Jullien's life and times. Jullien's hopes and fears for the "progress of humanity" were typical of many of the French bourgeoisie in this turbulent period. His life coincided with the whole era of revolution in Europe and the Americas. From 1775 to 1848: he was born in the year when armed rebellion against Britain began in America, he witnessed the fall of the Bastille as a schoolboy in Paris, joined the Jacobin club, took part in the Reign of Terror, advocated democracy, put his hopes in Napoleon Bonaparte, turned against him, and then welcomed his return from Elba. Under the restored Bourbons, he became an outspoken liberal, rejoiced in the revolution of 1830, had doubts about the July monarchy.
Welcomed the revolution of 1848, and died a few weeks before the election of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte as president of the Second Republic. Drawn from books, pamphlets, reports, letters, book reviews, magazine articles, poems, and private notes and memoranda, Jullien's comments are supplemented here by letters that his mother wrote during the early years of the French Revolution and by articles by Jullien's collaborators in the Revue Encyclopedique. ("Robespierre, his Brother, and his sister are to dine with us today," his mother writes. "I am most curious to see him close up.") In Palmer's skilled hands, these selected materials from a now forgotten life vividly portray France's transition from revolutionary republicanism and the Terror through the Napoleonic years to the more placid liberalism of the nineteenth century.

In 1931, Gustav Becker and Erna Kohen married. He was Catholic and she was Jewish. Erna and Gustav had no idea their religious affiliations, which mattered so little to them, would define their marriage under the Nazis. As one of the more than 20,000 German Jews married to an "Aryan" spouse, Erna was initially exempt from the most radical anti-Jewish measures. However, even after Erna willingly converted to Catholicism, the persecution, isolation, and hatred leveled against them by the Nazi regime and their Christian neighbors intensified, and she and their son Silvan were forced to flee alone into the mountains. Through intimate and insightful diary entries, Erna tells her own compelling and horrifying story and reflects on the fortunate escapes and terrible tragedies of her friends and family. The Nazis would exact steep payment for Erna's survival: her home, her family, and ultimately her faithful husband's life. The Evil That Surrounds Us reveals both the great evil of Nazi Germany and the powerful love and courage of her husband, friends, and strangers who risked everything to protect her.

Volume 1 of 2-volume set. One of the greatest books of all time -- a vast treasury of invaluable observations on the peoples and geography of the Near East and Asia in the 13th century. Detailed descriptions of cities, customs, laws, crops, animals, political systems, much more. 200 illustrations, 32 maps and site plans.

'Study me reader, if you find delight in me...Come, O men, to see the miracles that such studies will disclose in nature.'Most of what we know about Leonardo da Vinci, we know because of his notebooks. Some 6,000 sheets of notes and drawings survive, which represent perhaps one-fifth of what he actually produced. In them he recorded everything that interested him in the world around him, and his study of how things work. With an artist's eye and a scientist's curiosity he studied the movement of water and the formation of rocks, the nature of flight and optics, anatomy, architecture, sculpture, and painting.He jotted down fables and letters and developed his belief in the sublime unity of nature and man. Through his notebooks we can get an insight into Leonardo's thoughts, and his approach to work and life.This selection offers a cross-section of his writings, organized around coherent themes. Fully updated, this new edition includes some 70 line drawings and a Preface by Martin Kemp, one of the world's leading authorities on Leonardo.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The fall of the crusader-controlled city of Acre to the Muslims in 1291 inspired many schemes for crusades to recover Jerusalem and its environs. One of these proposals is How to Defeat the Saracens, written around 1317 by William of Adam, a Dominican who traveled extensively in the eastern Mediterranean, Persia, and parts of India. The treatise, poorly known even among specialists, presents a five-pronged plan for retaking the Holy Land. In particular, it focuses on cutting off economic and military support for Egypt. William's personal experience in the lands he describes comes through, for example, when he recollects his encounters in Persia with a captive Greek woman whose child he baptized, and in India with a lapsed Christian who said that God had abandoned him. In this volume Giles Constable provides a critical edition of the Latin text and a facing English translation. Extensive notes, produced in collaboration with other experts, guide the reader through the political, geographical, economic, military, and historical context of this fascinating work.

As capitalism in the twenty-first century enters its deepest economic and social crisis since the decades spanning the first and second imperialist world wars, programmatic and strategic matters in dispute in the communist workers movement in the early 1920s once again weigh heavily in prospects for the working class worldwide to advance along its historic line of march toward the conquest of power.—From the introduction In 1922 and 1923, V.I. Lenin, central leader of the world's first socialist revolution, waged what was to be his last political battle. At stake was whether that revolution would remain on the proletarian course that had brought workers and peasants in the former tsarist empire to power in October 1917—and laid the foundations for a truly worldwide revolutionary movement of toilers organizing to emulate the Bolsheviks' example.'Who will win?' Lenin asked in March 1922. Could the workers and peasants, emerging from years of war, devastation, and famine, continue to hold off the hostile capitalist world surrounding the Soviet republic? Above all, could they under those conditions prevail at home against rising bourgeois layers and their self-serving allies within the state and Communist Party apparatus? Lenin's Final Fight brings together, for the first time, the reports, articles, and letters through which Lenin waged this political battle. Many were suppressed for decades, and some have never before appeared in English.Introduction by Jack Barnes and Steve Clark, abbreviations and initials, chronology, notes, index.

Trotsky was a leading Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. He was a central leader of the Russian revolution and an influential politician in the early days of the Soviet Union. As the founder of the Fourth International, he continued in exile to encourage workers and oppressed peoples to unite against capitalism, and for socialist revolution.

Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto in the thirteenth century, Vasari traces the development of Italian art across three centuries to the golden epoch of Leonardo and Michelangelo. Great men, and their immortal works, are brought vividly to life, as Vasari depicts the young Giotto scratching his first drawings on stone; Donatello gazing at Brunelleschi's crucifix; and Michelangelo's painstaking work on the Sistine Chapel, harassed by the impatient Pope Julius II. The Lives also convey much about Vasari himself and his outstanding abilities as a critic inspired by his passion for art.

Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote the essay The Praise of Folly during a week at Sir Thomas More's estate in Bucklersbury. He later refined and extended the piece. In it he personifies Folly as a god, whose companions are likewise-personified sins and human weaknesses. His work criticizes the Catholic Church, and culminates in a statement of Christian ideals. Erasmus was a faithful Catholic, but his text is considered a catalyst to the Protestant movement.

Translated, with Notes and an Introduction, and including Paolo Toscanelli's sailing directions in letters to Columbus, and documents relating to Sebastian Cabot.

Ibn Battuta was born in Tangier in 1304. Between 1324 and 1354 he journeyed through North Africa and Asia Minor and as far as China. On a separate voyage he crossed the Sahara to the Muslim lands of West Africa. His journeys are estimated to have covered over 75,000 miles and he is the only medieval traveller known to have visited every Muslim state of the time, besides the 'infidel' countries of Istanbul, Ceylon and China. The first two volumes recorded Ibn Battuta's earliest journeys through Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Arabia, Persia, Iraq, Asia Minor and South Russia. In this volume he visits Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. There are detailed descriptions of the towns on the way and the customs of the inhabitants. Sir Hamilton Gibb is editing the text in four volumes with introduction and full notes. This first complete and scholarly edition in English has proved essential to orientalists and illuminating to medievalists. The travels are a major source for the political and economic life of large regions of Asia and Africa.The observations of this intelligent representative of Islamic culture on almost all the known inhabited world beyond Europe provide fruitful comparisons with the life and geographical knowledge of the West.

'You know how to win a battle, Hannibal; you do not know how to use the victory!'Livy's great history of Rome contains, in Books 21 to 30, the definitive ancient account of Hannibal's invasion of Italy in 218 BC, and the war he fought with the Romans over the following sixteen years. Livy describes the bloody siege of the Spanish city of Saguntum, Rome's ally, which sparked the war, and the Carthaginian leader's famous march with elephants over the Alps into Italy. Livy's gripping story-telling vividly conveys the drama of the great battles, the disastrous encounters atTrasimene and Cannae, and the final confrontation between Hannibal and the youthful Scipio Africanus. Individuals as well as events are brought powerfully to life, as the long course of the Second Punic War unfolds.This new translation captures the brilliance of Livy's style, and is accompanied by a fascinating introduction and notes.The complete Livy in English, available in five volumes from Oxford World's Classics.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

One of the masterpieces of classical literature, the "Histories" describes how a small and quarrelsome band of Greek city states united to repel the might of the Persian empire. But while this epic struggle forms the core of his work, Herodotus' natural curiosity frequently gives rise to colorful digressions - a description of the natural wonders of Egypt; an account of European lake-dwellers; and far-fetched accounts of dog-headed men and gold-digging ants. With its kaleidoscopic blend of fact and legend, the "Histories" offers a compelling Greek view of the world of the fifth century BC.

The Wealth of Nations is a treasured classic of political economy. First published in March of 1776, Adam Smith wrote the book to influence a special audience - the British Parliament - and its arguments in the early spring of that year pressed for peace and cooperation with Britain's colonies rather than war.

Nels Anderson's World War I Diary provides a rare glimpse into the wartime experiences of one of the most well-respected sociologists of the twentieth century, the renowned author of The Hobo (1920) and Desert Saints: The Mormon Frontier in Utah (1942). Anderson, a keen observer of people, places, and events his entire life, joined the U.S. Army in 1918 at the age of 29 and was sent to Europe to fight as part of the Allied Expeditionary Force (AEF) under General Pershing. Because keeping a journal was strongly discouraged among American forces during WWI, particularly among the rank-and-file soldiers, Anderson's diary stands as a rare gem. Furthermore, it is the only known account of war service during WWI by a member of the LDS Church. Anderson joined the Mormon faith after accepting the hospitality of an extended Mormon ranching family during his travels throughout the American West as a working hobo. Anderson's accounts of the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives are particularly remarkable given the challenges of keeping a detailed journal amidst the chaos and suffering of the war's Western Front. His insights into the depravity and callousness of war are buttressed with intimate human portraits of those to whom he was closest. The war years provided many formative experiences that would prove to have a lasting influence on Anderson's views regarding the working poor, authority, and human values; this would come to bear heavily on his later work as a pioneering sociologist at the University of Chicago, where he helped establish participant observation as a research method. The many introspective entries contained in this volume will be of  reat interest to military historians and history buffs as well as to those in the social sciences looking to find the intellectual origins of Anderson's later work in the burgeoning field of sociology. Winner of the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award for Journals, Memoirs, and Letters. 

The Great War is still seen as a mostly European war. The Middle Eastern theater is, at best, considered a sideshow written from the western perspective. This book fills an important gap in the literature by giving an insight through annotated translations from five Ottoman memoirs, previously not available in English, of actors who witnessed the last few years of Turkish presence in the Arab lands. It provides the historical background to many of the crises in the Middle East today, such as the Arab-Israeli confrontation, the conflict-ridden emergence of Syria and Lebanon, the struggle over the holy places of Islam in the Hejaz, and the mutual prejudices of Arabs and Turks about each other.

The journal was published for open access in English as a part of the series “Memoria” by the Max Weber Stiftung with the help of the Orient-Institut Istanbul! To dive into the memoirs of a Germans soldier stationed in Istanbul during the First World War.

The personal memoir of a Nazi soldier, from joining the German Army in 1941 through his time as a Panzer on the Eastern Front.   Originally written only for his daughter, Armin Schedierbauer's Adventures in My Youth chronicles his time as a solider during World War II. As an infantry officer with the 252nd Infantry Division, German Army, Schedierbauer saw four years of combat on the Eastern Front.   After joining his unit during the winter of 1942, he was wounded six times and had firsthand experience of the Soviet offensives in the summer of 1944 and January 1945. While fighting in East Prussia, he was captured by the Soviets and not released until 1947. Schedierbauer was only twenty-one years old when the war ended, and his memoir recollects the experiences he went through as a young man on the front.

Joseph Pilyushin, a top Red Army sniper in the ruthless fight against the Germans on the Eastern Front, was an exceptional soldier and has a remarkable story to tell. His firsthand account of his wartime service gives a graphic insight into his lethal skill with a rifle and into the desperate fight put up by Soviet forces to defend Leningrad. He also records how, during the three-year siege, close members of this family died, including his wife and two sons, as well as many of his comrades in arms. He describes these often-terrible events with such honesty and clarity that his memoir is remarkable.Piluyshin, who lived in Leningrad with his family, was already 35 years old when the war broke out and he was drafted. He started in the Red Army as a scout, but once he had demonstrated his marksmanship and steady nerve, he became a sniper. He served throughout the Leningrad siege, from the late 1941 when the Wehrmachts advance was halted just short of the city to its liberation during the Soviet offensive of 1944. His descriptions of grueling front-line life, of his fellow soldiers and of his sniping missions are balanced by his vivid recollections of the protracted suffering of Leningrads imprisoned population and of the grief that was visited upon him and his family.His gripping narrative will be fascinating reading for any one who is keen to learn about the role and technique of the sniper during the Second World War. It is also a memorable eyewitness account of one mans experience on the Eastern Front.

In 1942 Captain Lloyd Hunnicutt shipped out for the Pacific. He left behind, in Fort Worth, Texas, his beloved and pregnant wife, Virginia. Captain Hunnicutt went first to the island of New Caledonia, a relatively safe and malaria-free island, and then to the jungles of New Guinea, where his men were bombarded by the Japanese and threatened by malaria. Dearest Virginia presents a selection of the letters he wrote his wife, sometimes two a day. Captain Hunnicutt could not tell Virginia where he was, but the letters reflect his experiences in the Pacific--his efforts to keep busy on ship, the importance he placed on reading, the pleasures of fresh food as opposed to C-rations. But above all, these are love letters, filled with longing and loneliness, philosophical musings on marriage and fidelity, and humor. Reflecting the feelings of service men and women everywhere in all wars, these letters are as poignant and relevant today as they were sixty years ago. Of his concern for his wife's pregnancy, he wrote, "I don't want you scared by an automobile or anything this late--the baby might have a voice like a Chevrolet horn " The baby was a girl, named Gayle, who moved to England and became a well-known actress. Clearing out her parents' home when her mother moved to an assisted living facility, she found the letters from her father, stashed them away for later, and eventually spent months sorting, choosing, and condensing them to produce this book. Unfortunately, Captain Hunnicutt was required for security reasons to destroy any letters he received, so none of Virginia's correspondence survives. Gayle Hunnicutt contributed a lengthy memoir, rich with her memories of her parents and achildhood in Fort Worth. First published in England by Kyle Cathie Ltd; Publishers--2004.

In the summer of 1963, Second Lieutenant Kenneth P. Sympson, fresh out of the ROTC program at the University of California at Los Angeles, reported to Marine Corps Schools at Quantico, Virginia. Here he was trained in the essentials of being a marine officer, never imaging that he would be a part of OPERATION STARLITE, the first major U.S. action in what would become the Vietnam War. Sympson later served as the artillery liason officer of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, a unit dubbed the Magnificent Bastards. As a member of this legendary battalion, the author participated in OPERATION TEXAS, one of the bloodiest battles of the war. In a matter of hours, the artillery pieces under the direction of Sympson fired over 2,500 rounds. From the frontlines of Vietnam, this is the story of fear and dread, anticipation and boredom--of a man who served in country. It is also an exploration of how the war still affects him thirty years later.

From literary journalist Sara Mansfield Taber comes a deep and wondrous memoir of her exotic childhood as the daughter of a covert CIA operative. Born under an Assumed Name portrays the thrilling and confusing life of a girl growing up abroad in a world of secrecy and diplomacy--and the heavy toll it takes on her and her father. As Taber leads us on a tour through the alluring countries to which her father is assigned, we track two parallel stories--those of young Sara and her Cold War spy father. Sara struggles for normalcy as the family is relocated to cities in North America, Europe, and Asia, and the constant upheaval eventually exacts its price. Only after a psychiatric hospitalization at age sixteen in a U.S. Air Force hospital with shell-shocked Vietnam War veterans does she come to a clear sense of who she is. Meanwhile, Sara's sweet-natured, philosophical father becomes increasingly disillusioned with his work, his agency, and his country. This is the question at the heart of this elegant and sophisticated work: what does it mean to be an American? In this fascinating, painful, and ultimately exhilarating coming-of-age story, young Sara confronts generosity, greatness, and tragedy--all that America heaps on the world.

An extensive compilation of the political writings of left communist Sylvia Pankhurst on class, women, communism and fascism

A unique study of the WW2 culture of Germany.

Domesday: Book of Judgement provides a unique study of the extraordinary eleventh-century survey, the Domesday Book. Sally Harvey depicts the Domesday Book as the written evidence of a potentially insecure conquest successfully transforming itself, by a combination of administrative insight and military might, into a permanent establishment.William I used the Domesday Inquiry to contain the new establishment and consolidate their landholding revolution within a strict fiscal and tenurial framework, with checks and balances to prevent the king's followers from taking more powers and assets than they had been allocated. In this way, the survey served as a conciliatory gesture between the conquerors and the conquered, as William I came to realise that, faced with the threat to his rule from the Danes, he needed England's nativepopulations more than they needed him. Yes, the overlying theme of the Domesday Book is Judgment: every class of society had reason to regard the Survey's methodical and often pitiless proceedings as both a literal and a metaphorical day of account.In this volume, Sally Harvey considers the Anglo-Saxon background and the architects of the survey: the bishops, royal clerks, sheriffs, jurors, and landholders who contributed to Domesday's content and scope. She also discusses at length the core information in the Survey: coinage, revenues from landholding, fiscal concessions, and taxation, as well as some central tenurial issues. She draws the conclusion that the record, whilst consolidating William's position as king of the English, alsolaid the foundations for the twelfth-century treasury and exchequer. The volume newly argues that the Domesday survey also became an inquest into individual sheriffs and officials, thereby laying a foundation for reinterpreting the size of towns in England.

The Decameron (c.1351) was written in the wake of the Black Death, a shattering epidemic which had shaken Florence's confident entrepreneurial society to its core. In a country villa outside the city, ten young noble men and women who have escaped the plague decide to tell each other stories. Boccaccio's skill as a dramatist is masterfully displayed in this virtuoso performance of one hundred tales, vivid portraits of people from all stations in life, with plots which revel in a bewildering variety of human reactions. Themes are playfully restated from one story to another within an elegant and refined framework. One of Chaucer's most fruitful sources for the Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio's work artfully combines the essential ingredients of narrative: fate and desire, crises and quick-thinking. This new translation by Guido Waldman captures the exuberance and variety and tone of Boccaccio's masterpiece. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank's remarkable diary has become a world classic--a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit.  In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, the Franks and another family lived cloistered in the "Secret Annexe" of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and surprisingly humorous, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short. Praise for The Diary of a Young Girl "A truly remarkable book."--The New York Times "One of the most moving personal documents to come out of World War II."--The Philadelphia Inquirer "There may be no better way to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II than to reread The Diary of a Young Girl, a testament to an indestructible nobility of spirit in the face of pure evil."--Chicago Tribune "The single most compelling personal account of the Holocaust . . . remains astonishing and excruciating."--The New York Times Book Review "How brilliantly Anne Frank captures the self-conscious alienation and naïve self-absorption of adolescence."--Newsday

The Cold War contains a selection of official and unofficial documents which provide a truly multi-faceted account of the entire Cold War era. This volume presents the different kinds of materials necessary to understand what the Cold War was about, how it was fought, and the ways in whichit affected the lives of people around the globe.By depicting the experiences of East Berlin housewives and South African students, as well as those of political leaders from Europe and the Third World, The Cold War emphasizes the variety of ways in which the Cold War conflict was experienced. The significance of these differences is essential tounderstanding the Cold War: it demonstrates how the causes of the clash may have looked very different in Santiago from the way they looked in Seoul, New York, Moscow, or Beijing.The book examines the entirety of the Cold War era, presenting documents from the end of World War II right up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. A final selection of source material goes on to illustrate the impact of the Cold War to the present day. Again, the emphasis is global: thereare documents on the aftermath of the Cold War in Africa and Europe, as well as on the links between the Cold War and the dramatic events of 11 September 2001.By providing a truly international glimpse of the Cold War and its various actors and subjects, The Cold War helps cut through the often simplistic notions of the recent past and allows the reader to explore the truly global impact of the East-West confrontation that dominated internationalrelations in the second half of the twentieth century.

For decades, the CIA's top secret postmortem on the April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion has been the holy grail of historians, students, and survivors of the failed invasion of Cuba. But the scathing internal report on the worst foreign policy debacle of the Kennedy administration, written by the CIA's then-inspector general Lyman Kirkpatrick, has remained tightly guarded--until now. Dislodged from the government through the Freedom of Information Act, here is an uncompromising look at high officials' arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence, as displayed in their attitude toward Castro's revolution and toward the Cuban exiles the CIA had organized to invade the island. Including the complete report and a wealth of supplementary materials, Bay of Pigs Declassified provides a fascinating picture of the operation and of the secret world of the espionage establishment, with stories of plots, counterplots, and intra-agency power struggles worthy of a Le Carré novel. Includes: the complete text of the CIA report; a critical introduction; the newly declassified response to the report from Richard Bissell, who masterminded the operation; the first joint interview with the managers of the invasion, Jacob Esterline and Colonel Jack Hawkins; a comprehensive chronology; and biographies of the key participants.

Today Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, one of the most independent and lively eighteenth-century women, is mainly remembered as an entertaining and erudite correspondent. Some of her most celebrated letters were written from Constantinople, where she was staying with her husband, Edward Wortley Montagu, the Ambassador to the Sultan's court. They lived with their young son in the Ottoman capital for fifteen months, and her letters, full of vivid and witty observations, provide a unique picture of Turkish life and customs. Lady Mary had the sympathetic curiosity of the true traveller; she was charmed by everything in Constantinople the customs, costume, buildings and gardens and was determined to see everything. She visited the Harem and explored the old quarter disguised in a heavy veil and flowing robes even donning men's clothes to penetrate the all-male sanctity of the Santa Sophia mosque. The failure of her husband's peace mission brought an end to the visit. Reluctantly they sailed for home, with Lady Mary's pen still busily recording the details of the voyage. This illustrated edition of the Turkish letters has been edited to make it more immediately readable. A sparkling essay by Dervla Murphy, herself a fearless traveller, outlines the events of Lady Mary's life and explains how the letters came to be published in defiance of the family wishes. The illustrations, which are largely from the Searight Collection (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum), appear in book form for the first time and add greatly to the charm of this edition. Modern visitors to Turkey will be fascinated by this spirited portrait of an earlier age, while all who appreciate character, courage and a lively pen will enjoy meeting this most unusual woman."

Written in 1851-1869, Skarlatos Byzantios' three-volume masterpiece constitutes a feat of 19th c. scholarship, presented here for the first time in an annotated English translation. Drawing on Classical, Byzantine, Western European and Ottoman sources, Constantinople covers a vast period of over two and a half millennia, from the mythical foundation of Byzantium to Skarlatos' own time. A true polyglot and a keen observer, Skarlatos guides the reader through the neighbourhoods, monuments and social practices of his native city, assisted by detailed references to major historical events, personalities and long-forgotten anecdotes. His scholarly interests span across an impressive array of disciplines: political and social history, literature, architecture, epigraphy, urban planning, demography, ethnography, art and folklore.

Evliya Celebi was the 17th century's most diligent, adventurous, and honest recorder, whose puckish wit and humor are laced throughout his ten-volume masterpiece. This brand new translation brings Evliya sparklingly back to life. "Well worth a read."-Irish Echo 7/2011

"Who did the ancient Greeks describe as the world's best athlete? What does the Koran say about women's rights? How has the digital revolution changed life in the modern age? From the law courts of ancient Iraq to bloody Civil War battlefields, explore the daily lives of people from major world cultures throughout history, as presented in their own words. Bringing useful and engaging material into world history classrooms, this rich collection of historical documents and illustrations provides insight into major cultures from all continents. Hundreds of thematically organized, annotated primary documents, and over 100 images introduce aspects of daily life throughout the world, including domestic life, economics, intellectual life, material life, politics, religion, and recreation, from antiquity to the present. Document selections are guided by the National Standards for World History, providing a direct tie to the curriculum."--Publisher's description.

Jeffrey Isaac is James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy and Public Life at Indiana University, and Editor in Chief of the journal Perspectives on Politics. He lives in Bloomington, IN.