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the Rose. In 1300, in Languedoc in France, the great orator Délicieux emerged to pull together the various currents of resistance that were growing against the evil trio who were torturing and killing without mercy anyone who dared to question their dictates. At that time, Languedoc was a society controlled by fear. There were secret tribunals, abuses of power, trumped up charges, and the dungeons of Carcassonne housed hundreds of despairing innocents, whose only crime was to believe something slightly different from the established doctrine. They had therefore been branded as heretics. Nearly a century had passed since Languedoc had been put to the sword, but now, once again, any accusation of the heresy called Catharism invited peril. Délicieux, with his oratorical talents roused the populace, with the result that, after three years of struggle, the terrible prisons were stormed and the inmates set free. He had become a hero of France. A stirring 280 pages with colour plates, map. £17.99 NOW £8.50


73350 EGYPT: A Short


History by Robert L. Tignor Egypt has many layers - ancient and modern, Greek and Roman, Christian and Islamic. Over the 5,000 years of human settlement in the Nile River valley, she developed a unique and influential culture, sophisticated art and technology, and monumental architecture in the form of pyramids and temples - all


governed by a centralized monarchy. In this authoritative yet accessible introduction to her long, vibrant and complex history, a respected historian, who has lived there for over five decades, covers all the major eras of that development. The great age of the pharaohs, with which most people associate Egypt, is just the beginning of the story. This volume also gives a brilliant account of the tumultuous history that followed, from the Greek and Roman conquests, through the rise of Christianity, the Arab-Muslim triumph, Egypt’s incorporation into powerful Islamic empires, Napoleon’s 1798 invasion, the country’s absorption into the British Empire and right up to modern, post-colonial Egypt under Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak. 363 pages with illustrations in b/w, colour plates, maps. £19.95 NOW £8.50


73577 SPAIN, EUROPE AND THE WIDER WORLD 1500-


1800 by J. H. Elliott When, some 20 years ago, the author published Spain and Its World 1500-1700, the Times Literary Supplement enthused: ‘For anyone interested in the history of empire, of Europe and of Spain, here is a book to keep within reach, to read, to study and to enjoy’. Since then,


the author has continued to explore the history of the Hispanic world and, with insight and originality, to produce some of the most influential work in the field. In this new volume - extended to 1800 - he gathers writings that reflect his recent research and thinking, on the subject of politics, art, culture and ideas in Europe and the colonial worlds. Organised around three themes - early modern Europe, European overseas expansion and the works and historical context of El Greco, Velázquez, Rubens and Van Dyck - this comprehensive book offers a rich survey of what has lain at the heart of the author’s interests throughout a long and distinguished career. The volume includes 14 essays, lectures and articles of remarkable breadth and freshness, written with the author’s characteristic brio. It also encompasses an unpublished lecture in honour of the late Hugh Trevor-Roper. 322 pages illustrated in b/w. £25 NOW £10


73067 CHAMBERS DICTIONARY OF WORLD HISTORY: New Edition


edited by Bruce Lenman and Hilary Marsden Arranged in a straightforward A-Z format, this third edition of a work of reference has been welcomed as a comprehensive single-volume survey of the political, military, diplomatic and social history of the past 1000 years. It incorporates the use of the panels to handle broader topics significant in shaping the mental worlds within which decisions were taken establishing what was thinkable and what was not in different historical eras. The cartographic content has been redrawn and new maps added and there are a significant number of new entries on major themes like globalisation, environmental issues and international politics since the events of September 11th 2001. More than 60 panels, 35 historical and thematic maps, a concise chronology of world events. 2" thick and 978 pages. £30 NOW £11


71962 COUNTRY HOUSE KITCHEN 1650- 1900 Second Edition edited by Pamela Sambrook and Peter Brears


This extended second edition of a classic work is a must for anyone interested in food, history or country houses, or indeed all three. From brewing and baking through to distilling, working in the dairy and even ice- storage, this


informative volume offers an intimate look at the ingenuity and creativity that kept these kitchens running smoothly. It also explores the evolution of the kitchen range, cooking techniques, vessels and gadgets, and the kitchen staff who used them, as well as the relationship between kitchen, servery and dining room. 262 paperback pages 17.5cm x 25cm, illus.


£12.99 NOW £4


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72720 INSIDE DICKENS LONDON


by Michael Paterson “Fog everywhere”: Dickens’s descriptions of London are among the most powerful in literature, and this fascinating book draws on the bustle, commerce, cruelty, fog and dirt which permeates every novel Dickens wrote. “Pale and pinched faces hovered about the windows”: the population of London doubled in


the first half of the 19th century. Dickens was a keen observer of injustice and poverty, and he was writing when philanthropic organisations were beginning to address deprivation, for instance the Salvation Army and Dr Barnardo’s. Henry Mayhew’s research published in 1851 gave an impetus to social reformers and George Augustus Sala is a witty observer who supplies many descriptions in this book, together with the German tourist Max Schlesinger. Then as now London was a cosmopolitan city, with substantial Irish and Jewish communities and a small black ethnic group, many of them sailors. 351pp. £9.99 NOW £4.50


72721 INSIDE PEPY’S LONDON by Jonathan Bastable


The young Samuel Pepys played truant from school to witness the execution of Charles I, and perhaps that momentous event prompted him to become a meticulous record-keeper, preserving for posterity a picture of London’s bustling street life and the politics of the time. This book uses numerous extracts from Pepys’ diary to build a picture of Restoration London. Pepys describes how his jealous wife comes at him with some red hot tongs at one o’clock in the morning, but on another occasion he gives her 50 shillings, a huge amount of money, to buy a petticoat. The Great Plague and the Great Fire are vividly described by this most observant eye-witness. Pepys was troubled by kidney stones all his life and they eventually caused his death, so his diary also gives us insight into 17th century medical care. 351pp. £9.99 NOW £5


72789 STORY OF ENGLAND: A Village and its


People Through the Whole of English History by Michael Wood


For an island country of modest dimensions situated on the fringes of Europe, England’s influence on world history, culture, literature and politics has been disproportionately great. But how did the English people come about and develop their unique way of seeing the world? In order to answer that question, the historian, filmmaker and broadcaster Michael Wood took an original and highly effective approach, exploring the national narrative from Roman times to the present day through the eyes of one place - Kibworth, a village in Leicestershire. What swung it for Wood though was the astonishing treasure trove of documents from the village held at Merton College, Oxford for the medieval period. An absolutely compelling tale of England in miniature with departing Romans, Viking and Saxon immigrants, Norman conquerors, the Black Death and famine, religious and political conflict, the Industrial Revolution, the Empire and two World Wars - all these made their indelible mark of this tiny community. 440pp, b/w photos.


£20 NOW £9.50


73060 BOOK OF KNIGHTS by L. A. Williams What was it actually like to be an élite soldier, kitted out with a sharp sword and a suit of gleaming armour, an icon of courage, strength and chivalry? From heraldry to weaponry, training and real battles, repelling invading forces, and revelling in the ancient stories of legend, here is the knight in all his gory glory. Here are the famous incidents in knightly history that would have nourished your bellicose ambitions, such as Joan of Arc’s courageous campaign against the British and Burgundian occupation of France, and the notorious Battle of Agincourt in which French knights found themselves victims of their own body armour. Here, too, are the legendary heroes that you would have longed to emulate: King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, the Christian knight Rinaldo rescuing his beloved from a sorceress, and the Nordic hero Beowulf. 134 pages 34cm x 25cm, colour illus. £16.99 NOW £6.50


73095 GREAT EMPIRES OF ASIA edited by Jim Masselos


From the beginning of the modern era in 1500 AD, Western history has placed Europe at the centre of worldwide political economic and cultural affairs. The book brings to life 1,000 years of history, ranging from the Khmer, who inhabited South East Asia from 802 onwards, through the Mongols whose empire lasted for 200 years, and the Ottomans who played a significant role in world history, the Meiji Restoration in Japan from 1868 to the end of the Second World War in 1945. In this superbly illustrated volume, experts on art and history analyse the whole Asian imperial enterprise, with an emphasis on the cultural and creative. Their essays provide a decisive corrective to old myths about European dominance relative to Asia, and show instead the polycentric nature of world power during the past 500 years. They prove how Asian kingdoms dominated global political geography and challenged the states of Europe, rather than the reverse. 240 pages 28cm x 22cm lavishly illus in colour. ONLY £9.50


71304 DISCOVERING LOCAL HISTORY by David Iredale and John Barrett Two professional archivists help the observant visitor and sensitive resident to recognise aspects of local history in the distinctive place-names, customs, architecture, environment and community of every town and parish. Local history is discovered through printed books, local records, national archives, museum collections, newspapers, pictures, maps and of course the vigorous memories of local folk. From the Romans to Vikings 410-865, the Middle Ages to the modern era, and the use of the Internet to assist, this is a superb grounding in 248 page very well illustrated softback. £10.99 NOW £4


73132 KING’S REVENGE: Charles II and the Greatest


Manhunt in British History by Don Jordan and Michael Walsh


The execution of Charles I on that bitter day in January 1649 instilled in his exiled son, the 19-year-old Prince of Wales, a thirst for revenge bordering on the fanatical. Not only did he want vengeance against the 59 regicides who signed his father’s


death warrant, but also anybody who had supported them. From exile in Holland he instigated the biggest manhunt the nation had seen, spreading from England to the rest of Europe and on to America, lasting for 30 years. When he ascended the throne as Charles II in 1660 his thirst for revenge intensified, with show trials in London and assassination squads despatched abroad. Charles II’s fury knew no reason and grotesquely, even those who had since died such as Cromwell himself, John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton, Cromwell’s son-in- law, had their decomposing bodies disinterred and decapitated. History has painted all the regicides as fanatical Puritans, but among their number were some exceptional men such as the poetic genius John Milton and Algernon Sidney, who decamped to the US. B/w plates, 383pp paperback. £14.99 NOW £6


73258 SACRED SWORDS: Jihad in the Holy Land 1097-


1291 by James Waterson Embracing the great themes of medieval history and relating events that retain an especial relevance today, this book is a history of both the Crusades and the Mongol response to them. It is filled with eyewitness accounts of battles and sieges, political intriguing, moments of high chivalry


and extreme courage. It also describes every battle and campaign from the destruction of the People’s Crusade in 1097 to the conquest of Acre in 1291, clarifying the Islamic way of war and the men who made jihad. Using primarily Muslim sources, the author reconstructs the politics of the Levant from the First Crusade on, and places all the action of that period in the wider context of the Muslim world of the time. Here are the famed leaders of the jihad: Zangi, Nur al-Din, Saladin and Baybars. The story of the Holy War that would eventually destroy the Latin Kingdom is traced and analysed from its origins among the princes of northern Iraq. Here too is the history of the long naval contest that raged between the navy of Egypt and the Crusader fleets. Foreword by Terry Jones. 206 pages with b/w plates, maps.


£19.99 NOW £6


72550 THE LAST GUNFIGHT by Jeff Guinn


Sheriffs and outlaws, cattle rustlers, frontier prostitutes, renegade Apaches - this is the Wild West as it really was. Drawing on letters and Wyatt Earp’s own hand drawn sketch of the shoot-out’s conclusion, here is the definitive work on the Wild West’s greatest shoot out. On the afternoon of 26th October 1881, in a vacant lot on Tombstone,


Arizona, a confrontation between eight armed men erupted into a deadly shoot out. The gunfight at the OK Corral shaped how future generations came to view the old West and Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the Clantons became the stuff of legends. But the truth of its circumstances is even better. Photos and map, 392pp in paperback.


£12.99 NOW £5


73203 LANDMARK XENOPHON’S HELLENIKA by Robert B. Strassler and David Thomas Xenophon’s Hellenika is the primary source for the events of the final seven years of the Peloponnesian War and its aftermath. This superbly detailed volume covers the years between 411 and 362 BC, a particularly dramatic period during which the alliances among Athens, Sparta, Thebes and Persia were in constant flux. Together with the volumes of Herodotus and Thucydides, it completes an ancient narrative of the military and political history of classical Greece. The citizens of Athens overcame their own complex problems in reconciling law and popular government, and so produced a stable democracy. Much of what was written then continues to inspire philosophers and historians today. Xenophon was an Athenian who participated in the expedition of Cyrus the Younger against Cyrus’ brother the Persian King Artaxerxes II. Later, Xenophon joined the Spartan army and consequentially was exiled from Athens. In addition to the Hellenika, a number of his essays have survived, including one on his memories of his teacher, Socrates. This edition gives readers a new, authoritative and completely accessible translation. Its 16 appendices have been written by leading classics scholars, and the timeline helps to clarify what would otherwise be a confusing period. Unlike any other edition of the Hellenika, it also includes the relevant texts of Diodorus Siculus and the Oxyrhynchus Historian. 565 pages with encyclopaedic index. Timeline/chronology. £35 NOW £12.50


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70877 BLOOD SPORT: Hunting in Britain Since 1066 by Emma Griffin


The story of foxhunting in the 20th century encapsulates the history of hunting in England over the past millennium with its endless adaptations to a changing environment and ad hoc responses to the demands of a more complex society. Wild boar and wolves were early victims of over-zealous hunting and disappeared some time in the 15th century from Britain. From Ancient Greece and Egypt, the Norman Conquest and the passing of the Hunting with Dogs Act of 2004, this is a long and colourful history. 283pp in paperback. £14.99 NOW £3


History 13 71966 BRITAIN’S ROYAL HERITAGE: An A


to Z of the Monarchy by Marc Alexander Arranged in a convenient A-Z format, with many cross references, it contains mini biographies on each of the 42 kings and queens who have ruled since the Norman Conquest, and also provides details of the royal lines in Scotland before the Act of Union, the background to the royal houses of Britain, and the consorts - largely foreign - who have married into the monarchy, as well as a mine of other information. Here, from King Athelstan in AD 825 to our own Queen Elizabeth II, are the royal scandals, the wars, the ceremonies, the households, the tombs and insignia - even the royal pets and


needlework. 372 paperback pages 17.5cm x 25cm


lavishly illus in colour.


£14.99 NOW £5


71186 EXCELLENCE IN ACTION: A Portrait of the Guards


edited by Rupert Uloth


The Household Cavalry comprises the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals, and the Foot Guards is made up of the Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards. The first section includes a timeline of important events in the Guards’ history, pictures from the Trooping of the Colour and the Queen’s Birthday Parade, as well as a special feature on the Crimean War and Guards’ treasures and artefacts. Section two provides a richly detailed history and factfile of each of the seven regiments. The third section makes a more detailed examination of the Guards in action from 1945 up to Iraq and the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Section four, Guards on Parade, is full of the pomp and pageantry you would expect. Plus a look at famous ex-guardsmen. 500 photos. 208pp, 10¼” × 12¼”. £39.50 NOW £12


71303 DISCOVERING HERALDRY by Jacqueline Fearn


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This Shire publication is written by an expert who has researched into the romance, art and practicalities of the granting, designing and reading of coats of arms. Illustrated with brass rubbings, ecclesiastical arms, city arms like the City of London, shields and heraldry in other countries. Fully illus, 96 page small paperback. £5.99 NOW £2.50


71480 BURY THE CHAINS: Prophets and


Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves by Adam Hochschild


This is the gripping telling of that brilliantly organised campaign, which began in May 1797 with 12 men, including a printer, a lawyer and a clergyman with a common revulsion of slavery. The campaign’s leaders pioneered a variety of techniques from consumer boycotts to wall posters and from lapel badges to celebrity endorsement. William Wilberforce is nowadays credited with the abolition of slavery, but this deft chronicle of the anti-slavery crusade shows that this human rights watershed was much more than the work of just one man. The unimaginable fate of captured slaves is told from firsthand sources. Illus, 467pp paperback.


$16 NOW £3 71481 CONVERSATION: A History of a


Declining Art by Stephen Miller In the 20th century, the possibility of conversation has been questioned by many novelists and thinkers who state that what we say is shaped mainly by subconscious passions or by ideas that enter our psyche subliminally. Writers in the 18th century said that conversation promoted psychological health and intellectual development and several writers argued that there was a correlation between political stability and the extent of what Hume called the ‘Conversable World’. From its beginnings in Ancient Greece to today. 336pp in paperback.


£12.99 NOW £3


71496 MAKING HASTE FROM BABYLON: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History by Nick Bunker


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Here is a lively retelling of the Pilgrim Fathers’ story as the author delves into the byways of how the voyage of 1620 came to be, and how the pilgrims managed to survive. Two years later, as the Pilgrims prepared to sail across the Atlantic on board the Mayflower, the atmosphere was still charged with fear. Men and women readied themselves for war, pestilence or divine retribution. They were entrepreneurs as well as evangelicals, political radicals as well as Christian idealists. Within a decade, despite crisis and catastrophe, they had built a thriving settlement at New Plymouth, based on beaver fur, corn and cattle. From mercantile London and the rural England of Queen Elizabeth and King James to the mountains and rivers of Maine, the author combines religion, politics, money, science and the sea. 489 pages with maps and illus. £25 NOW £7.50


71509 SHAKESPEARE’S ENGLAND Life in Elizabethan and Jacobean Times by R. E. Pritchard


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A fascinating picture of the age, with a selection of lively accounts taken from books, plays, poems, letters, diaries and pamphlets by and about Shakespeare’s contemporaries. The extracts, carefully modernised, are organised thematically. You will find observations and acute comments on life in country and town, theatre- going, May Day celebrations, the court and Queen Elizabeth, the place of women, education, clothes, food, drink and religion. King James I comments caustically on the evils of tobacco, and John Donne meditates soulfully on prayer and death. 269 paperback pages, illus.


£9.99 NOW £4


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