Capitalism

The true story of Gerard Mercator, the greatest map-maker of all time, who was condemned to death as a heretic.‘Geographie and Chronologie I may call the Sunne and the Moone, the right eye and the left, of all history.’In ‘The World of Gerard Mercator’, Andrew Taylor chronicles both the story of a great astronomer and mathematician, who was condemned to death as a heretic, and the history of that most fascinating conjunction of science and art: the drawing of maps. Gerard Mercator was born in Flanders in 1512. In addition to creating accurate globes of the earth and the stars, he was the first person to use latitude and longitude for navigation and he created the most-used map of all time: Mercator’s Projection is still the standard view of the world, the one we all envisage when we think of a map of the globe. Simply finding the best solution to the impossible challenge of reproducing the spherical world on a flat sheet of paper was a considerable achievement in itself – something geographers and map-makers had been trying to do for centuries, but Mercator also created the map of the world that would form the basis of the modern age, an image of the continents for the common man.Until Mercator’s Projection, maps offered a pictorial encyclopaedia to an illiterate world, and that world stretched far beyond the knowledge and travels of most mapmakers. It is this evolution of mapmaking from art to science that forms the backdrop to the story of Mercator, from the days of Herodotus and Strabo when fabulous creatures were supposed to inhabit the fringes of the world to the great mappae mundi of Hereford and Ebsdorf. The Greek geographer Pytheas claimed to have visited the far north of Britain to establish the limits of the habitable world; but further north, he claimed that the earth, air and sea coalesced into a jellyfish-like gelatinous suspension that made life impossible.‘The World of Gerard Mercator’ is a brilliantly readable and absolutely fascinating history for the general reader, describing how our worldview came into being.

The world’s greatest haulier – a rags-to-riches tale of British entrepreneurialsim.If you’ve never seen an Eddie Stobart truck, you’ve never driven down a British motorway.This is the extraordinary story of a multi-million pound business that spawned a middle-class motorway game. Of dynastic struggles that ended in a merchandising shop opposite Carlisle cathedral.A quintessentially British tale – written by the inimitable bestselling writer Hunter Davies, and with the full support of Eddie Stobart himself.

It would be hard to invent a group of personalities more extraordinary than the British Royal Family – known as 'The Firm' by Prince Philip. With an eye on the past, present and future, this book takes a look at how the family really operates and reveals how they behave behind closed doors.This ebook is made from the 2009 edition.With showbiz stars and sporting celebrities now attracting the adulation once afforded to royalty, The Firm questions what monarchy is for.Is it a hangover from the past, an expensive anachronism, a relic of a bygone age of deference and hierarchy, or is it an important and relevant part of Britain in the 21st century – something that gives stability and continuity to the country, and richness and glamour to our national life in ways that a republic never could? If so, do the media mock, hound and criticize the Royal Family at their peril? Has Prince Charles sacrificed the throne for love? Could Prince William decide that the long lenses and the scrutiny of his private life is too high a price to pay?Penny will also look at how the dynamics of the royal household have changed over the last year and what repercussions these changes will have. Whilst in the hardback edition Penny Junor was able to discuss the implications of Charles and Camilla's marriage only two months after it was announced, the paperback promises to offer a host of new surprises and implication for the future of the House of Windsor, as well as an inside view of how The Firm have taken in their newest member.Whatever happens over the next year, we can be sure that Penny will update this paperback edition to make it an essential buy for anyone who has even a passing interest in Britain's most dysfunctional and fascinating family.

In 1992 Christina Lamb reported on the war the Afghan people were fighting against the Soviet Union. Now, back in Afghanistan, she has written an extraordinary memoir of her love affair with the country and its people.Long haunted by her experiences in Afghanistan, Lamb returned there after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre to find out what had become of the people and places that had marked her life as a young graduate. This time seeing the land through the eyes of a mother and experienced foreign correspondent, Lamb's journey brings her in touch with the people no one else is writing about: the abandoned victims of almost a quarter century of war.‘Of all books about Afghanistan, Christina Lamb’s is the most revealing and rewarding…a personal, perceptive and moving account of bravery in the face of staggering difficulties.’ Anthony Sattin, Sunday Times‘As an account of how Afghanistan got into its present state, and of the making of the grotesque regime of the Taliban, this book could not possibly be bettered. Brilliant.’ Matthew Leeming, Spectator‘Lamb’s book combines a love of Afghanistan with a fearless search for the human stories behind the past twenty-three years of war…Her book is not only a necessary education for the Western reader in the political warring that generated the torture, murder and poverty, but also a stirring lament for the country of ruins that was once better known for its poetry and mosques.’ James Hopkin, The Times

Saltire First Scottish Book of the Year 2012The story of the life of Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat : a clan chief of the Scottish nobility, rebel and Jacobite conspirator. He became the last British peer to go under the axe, marking a moment in history when the rest of Britain turned decisively away from the Celtic heritage.Lord Lovat was a spy, clan-chief, traitor, polyglot, deserter and philosopher. His wit, ambition and dubious morality thrust him repeatedly into the thick of political intrigue. A treacherous turncoat, and yet a martyr for Bonnie Prince Charlie’s dreams to retake the British throne, Lovat conjured a legend: a man whose loyalty had no home, whose sword had a price, and whose taste for risks led him into pacts with Catholics and Protestants, Scots and Englishmen.The last nobleman to be executed for treason, Lovat was one of Scotland’s most notorious and romantic figures, and this swashbuckling account of his life creates an extraordinary portrayal of a nation in revolt. As Sarah Fraser argues, the defeat at Culloden led directly to the end of traditional Gaelic civilization; to the brutal clearances and ‘pacification’ of the Highlands which followed and the lost civilisations of Scotland that were destroyed after 1745 by English repression.