eBook PDF Download Digital Library
Author: Simon Schama
Publisher: London : BBC ; Toronto : M & S
Published: 2000
Total Pages: 424
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The first volume in this history of Britain tells the story of Britain from the time of the earliest settlements discovered in the Orkneys to the death of Queen Elizabeth the first.
Author: Simon Schama
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart Limited
Published: 2003-01-01
Total Pages: 576
ISBN-13: 9780771079221
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Simon Schama's dramatic, broad-ranging, and immensely readable epic history of Britain reaches its triumphant conclusion in this third and final volume, which stretches from the American Revolution to the present. "The Fate of Empire tells the eventful and exhilarating story of Britain's rise and fall as an imperial power, from the political turmoil of the 1770s to the struggle of present day leaders to find a way to make a different national future. The volume also examines the Romantic generation, the role of women in Victorian England, industrialization, and the liberal empire from Ireland to India, which promised material improvement, but delivered coercion and famine. As in the previous volumes, Schama vividly portrays the lives of extraordinary personalities - Queen Victoria, Churchill, Dickens, and "ordinary" individuals including the author of the first British travel guide, and Elizabeth Anderson, the first woman doctor. Finally, Schama asks an essential question: what kind of Britain can hold together when its island isolation and its imperial dominion have both vanished? An examination of the legacy of the British ideal of freedom is at the heart of this entertaining and well-researched book. With "The Fate of Empire, Simon Schama has proven himself, again, as a masterful writer of narrative history.
Author: Simon Schama
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Published: 2009
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781847920140
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →'While Britain was losing an empire, it was finding itself...' The compelling opening words to The Fate of the Empire, set the tone and agenda for the final stage of Simon Schama's epic voyage around Britain, her people and her past. Spanning two centuries, crossing the breadth of the empire and covering a vast expanse of topics - from the birth of feminism to the fate of freedom - he explores the forces that shaped British culture and character from 1776 to 2000. The story opens on the eve of a bloody revolution, but not a British one. The French Revolution never quite crossed the Channel, though its spirit of fiery defiance and Romantic idealism did, sparking off a round of radical revolts and reforms that gathered momentum over the coming century - from the Irish Rebellion to the Chartist Petition. The great question of the Victorian century was how the world's first industrial society could come through its growing pains without falling apart in social and political conflict. Would the machine age destroy or strengthen the institutions that held Britain together, from the family to the farm? And if the British Empire helped to make Britain stable and rich, did it live up to its promise to help the ruled as well as the rulers? On the way to answering these questions, The Fate of the Empire makes stops at both celebrations, like the Great Exhibition, and catastrophes, like the Irish potato famine and the Indian Mutiny. Amidst the military and economic shocks and traumas of the 20th century, and through the voices of Churchill, Orwell and H. G. Wells, it asks the question that is still with us - is the immense weight of our history a blessing or a curse, a gift or a millstone around the neck of our future? It is a vast compelling epic, made more so by the lively storytelling and big bold characters at the heart of the action. But alongside flamboyant heroes, like Nelson and Churchill, Schama recalls unsung heroines and virtually unknown enemies. Alongside the grand ideas, he exposes the grand illusions that cost untold lives. Schama looks head on at the facts and asks, 'What went wrong with the liberal dream?' The answers emerge in The Fate of the Empire, which reveals the living ideals of Britain's long history, 'a history that tied together social justice with bloody-minded liberty'.
Author: Roy Strong
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Published: 2018-06-14
Total Pages: 608
ISBN-13: 1474607071
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →THE CLASSIC HISTORY OF BRITAIN, FULLY UPDATED Roy Strong has written an exemplary introduction to the history of Britain, as first designated by the Romans. It is a brilliant and balanced account of successive ages bound together by a compelling narrative which answers the questions: 'Where do we come from?' and 'Where are we going?' Beginning with the earliest recorded Celtic times, and ending with the present day of Brexit Britain, it is a remarkable achievement. With his passion, enthusiasm and wide-ranging knowledge, he is the ideal narrator. His book should be read by anyone, anywhere, who cares about Britain's national past, national identity and national prospects.
Author: Lotte Hellinga
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1999-12-09
Total Pages: 846
ISBN-13: 9780521573467
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This volume of The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain presents an overview of the century-and-a-half between the death of Chaucer in 1400 and the incorporation of the Stationers' Company in 1557. The profound changes during that time in social, political and religious conditions are reflected in the dissemination and reception of the written word. The manuscript culture of Chaucer's day was replaced by an ambience in which printed books would become the norm. The emphasis in this collection of essays is on the demand and use of books. Patterns of ownership are identified as well as patterns of where, why and how books were written, printed, bound, acquired, read and passed from hand to hand. The book trade receives special attention, with emphasis on the large part played by imports and on links with printers in other countries, which were decisive for the development of printing and publishing in Britain.
Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay Baron Macaulay
Publisher:
Published: 1855
Total Pages: 348
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Andrew Marr
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: 2009-03-06
Total Pages: 640
ISBN-13: 1429931019
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A History of Modern Britain confronts head-on the victory of shopping over politics. It tells the story of how the great political visions of New Jerusalem or a second Elizabethan Age, rival idealisms, came to be defeated by a culture of consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification. In each decade, political leaders think they know what they are doing, but find themselves confounded. Every time, the British people turn out to be stroppier and harder to herd than predicted. Throughout, Britain is a country on the edge – first of invasion, then of bankruptcy, then on the vulnerable front line of the Cold War and later in the forefront of the great opening up of capital and migration now reshaping the world. This history follows all the political and economic stories, but deals too with comedy, cars, the war against homosexuals, Sixties anarchists, oil-men and punks, Margaret Thatcher's wonderful good luck, political lies and the true heroes of British theatre.
Author: Simon Schama
Publisher: Miramax
Published: 2000
Total Pages: 550
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The second installment of Schama's epic three-part history of Britain is a complete chronicle of the eventful years from 1603 to 1776. 150 color photos. 10 color maps.
Author: Stephen Wall
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-06-30
Total Pages: 372
ISBN-13: 9780367583576
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Volume III of The Official History of Britain and the European Community covers the divisions over Europe of the Labour Government (1975-79) and the controversies surrounding Britain's relations with her EEC partners under Margaret Thatcher. As the UK prepares to leave the European Union, this book is the story of the stresses, quarrels, compromises and ambitions which contributed to an unhappy relationship between the United Kingdom and her European partners. Immediately after the 1975 referendum, when the British people voted by a large majority to stay in the European Community, the divisions in the Labour Party over Europe, which had caused the referendum in the first place, resurfaced as if nothing had changed. They dogged the beleaguered Government of James Callaghan and contributed to the defeat of the Labour Party in the General Election of 1979. Margaret Thatcher proclaimed herself a pro-European Prime Minister but her premiership, too, was governed by a succession of crises in Britain's relations with her partners as Thatcher fought to redress the unfair budget deal Britain had been forced to accept on accession, and then to secure her vision of a reformed, outward-looking, economically liberal Europe. This is also the story of personal relationships between Thatcher and the successive leaders of Germany, France and the United States. It is told through the contemporary accounts of the period, in the words, ideas and emotions of politicians and officials at the heart of Government. This work will be of much interest to students of British politics, European Union history, diplomacy and International Relations in general.
