An Honourable Exit

Издание на английском языке. Издание представляет историю русской государственности с IX века по настоящее время. Включает около 500 иллюстраций - произведения живописи, графики, шедевры русской архитектуры и иконописи, пользующиеся мировой известностью державные символы России, уникальные архивные фотографии и др. Автор основного текста - известный российский историк Евгений Анисимов, главный научный сотрудник Санкт-Петербургского института истории Российской Академии наук.

An 'entertaining, informative and utterly depressing global history of an important commodity . . . By alerting readers to the ways that modernity's very origins are entangled with a seemingly benign and delicious substance, How Sugar Corrupted the World raises fundamental questions about our world.' Sven Beckert, the Laird Bell professor of American history at Harvard University and the author of Empire of Cotton: A Global History, in the New York Times 'A brilliant and thought-provoking history of sugar and its ironies' Bee Wilson, Wall Street Journal 'Shocking and revelatory . . . no other product has so changed the world, and no other book reveals the scale of its impact.' David Olusoga 'This study could not be more timely.' Laura Sandy, Lecturer in the History of Slavery, University of Liverpool The story of sugar, and of mankind's desire for sweetness in food and drink is a compelling, though confusing story. It is also an historical story. The story of mankind's love of sweetness - the need to consume honey, cane sugar, beet sugar and chemical sweeteners - has important historical origins. To take a simple example, two centuries ago, cane sugar was vital to the burgeoning European domestic and colonial economies. For all its recent origins, today's obesity epidemic - if that is what it is - did not emerge overnight, but instead evolved from a complexity of historical forces which stretch back centuries. We can only fully understand this modern problem, by coming to terms with its genesis and history: and we need to consider the historical relationship between society and sweetness over a long historical span. This book seeks to do just that: to tell the story of how the consumption of sugar - the addition of sugar to food and drink - became a fundamental and increasingly troublesome feature of modern life. Walvin's book is the heir to Sidney Mintz's Sweetness and Power, a brilliant sociological account, but now thirty years old. In addition, the problem of sugar, and the consequent intellectual and political debate about the role of sugar, has been totally transformed in the years since that book's publication.

The penultimate volume of Peter Ackroyd's masterful History of England series, Dominion begins in 1815 as national glory following the Battle of Waterloo gives way to post-war depression, spanning the last years of the Regency to the death of Queen Victoria in January 1901. In it, Ackroyd takes us from the accession of the profligate George IV whose government was steered by Lord Liverpool, who was firmly set against reform, to the reign of his brother, William IV, the 'Sailor King', whose reign saw the modernization of the political system and the abolition of slavery. But it was the accession of Queen Victoria, aged only eighteen, that sparked an era of enormous innovation. Technological progress swept the nation and the finest inventions were showcased at the first Great Exhibition in 1851. The emergence of the middle classes changed the shape of society and scientific advances changed the old pieties of the Church of England, and spread secular ideas across the nation. But though intense industrialization brought boom times for the factory owners, the working classes were still subjected to poor housing, long working hours and dire poverty. It was a time that saw a flowering of great literature, too. As the Georgian era gave way to that of Victoria, readers could delight not only in the work of Byron, Shelley and Wordsworth but also the great nineteenth-century novelists: the Bronte sisters, George Eliot, Mrs Gaskell, Thackeray, and, of course, Dickens, whose work has become synonymous with Victorian England. Nor was Victorian expansionism confined to Britain alone. By the end of Victoria's reign, the Queen was also an Empress and the British Empire dominated much of the globe. And, as Ackroyd shows in this richly populated, vividly told account, Britannia really did seem to rule the waves.

From Voltaire to Verlaine and from Hugo to Hemingway, these are the Paris locations that have influenced modern literature. The book is an elegant photographic stroll around the bookshops, famous literary restaurants and storied streets of Europe’s favourite tourist destination. Literary Landscapes: Paris takes this major European city and with picture perfect photography, compiles an album of memorable views linked to the words of Parisian authors, or writers who made Paris their home. It looks at places where books were written, discussed over dinner, and where ultimately the books are sold. There are the theatres of Moliere, Dumas and Beaumarchais along with the incredible Palais Garnier opera house and the legend of Le Fantome by Gaston Leroux. There are the revered bookshops of the Latin Quarter including the idiosyncratic Shakespeare & Co. There are the classic grand structures referenced in Victor Hugo novels (and still there) or the mean streets of George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris. There are the famous cafes where authors gathered and wrote, or where artists and philosophers argued: Les Deux Magots, Cafe de Flore, Le Procope, La Closerie des Lilas, Prunier, Le Dome, La Rotonde and Le Select. There are the bouquinistes ranged in their green booths along the Seine, as once tended by Jean Genet. And there is the classic expatriate Paris of Joyce, Stein, Wilde, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Beat poets. Literary Landscapes: Paris takes readers on an exclusive cultural journey, introduced by one of the city’s most engaging tourist guides.

Killing Thatcher is the gripping account of how the IRA came astonishingly close to killing Margaret Thatcher and to wiping out the British Cabinet - an extraordinary assassination attempt linked to the Northern Ireland Troubles and the most daring conspiracy against the Crown since the Gunpowder Plot. In this fascinating and compelling book, veteran journalist Rory Carroll retraces the road to the infamous Brighton bombing in 1984 - an incident that shaped the political landscape in the UK for decades to come. He begins with the infamous execution of Lord Mountbatten in 1979 - for which the IRA took full responsibility - before tracing the rise of Margaret Thatcher, her response to the 'Troubles' in Ireland and the chain of events that culminated in the hunger strikes of 1981 and the death of 10 republican prisoners, including Bobby Sands. From that moment on Thatcher became an enemy of the IRA - and the organisation swore revenge. Opening with a brilliantly-paced prologue that introduces bomber Patrick Magee in the build up to the incident, Carroll sets out to deftly explore the intrigue before and after the assassination attempt - with the story spanning three continents, from pubs and palaces, safe houses and interrogation rooms, hotels and barracks. On one side, an elite IRA team aided by a renegade priest, US-raised funds and Libya's Qaddafi and on the other, intelligence officers, police detectives, informers and bomb disposal officers. An exciting narrative that blends true crime with political history, this is the first major book to investigate the Brighton attack.