THE THIRD EDITION OF THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER, REVISED AND UPDATED 'A rich, galloping narrative that spans the Arab world...outstanding, gripping and exuberant...full of flamboyant character sketches, witty asides and magisterial scholarship, that explains much of what we need to know about the world today' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'Anyone who seeks to understand why the Islamic world bears a grudge against the West should read The Arabs' Sir Alaistair Horne Starting with the Ottoman conquests in the sixteenth century, this landmark book follows the story of the Arabs through the era of European imperialism and the Superpower rivalries of the Cold War, to the present age of unipolar American power. Drawing on the writings and eyewitness accounts of those who lived through the tumultuous years of Arab history, The Arabs balances different voices - politicians, intellectuals, students, men and women, poets and novelists, famous, infamous and the completely unknown - to give a rich, complex sense of life over nearly five centuries. Rogan's book is remarkable for its geographical sweep, covering the Arab world from North Africa through the Arabian Peninsula, and for the depth in which it explores every facet of modern Arab history. Charting the evolution of Arab identity from Ottomanism to Arabism to Islamism, it covers themes including the conflict between national independence and foreign domination, the Arab-Israeli struggle and the peace process, Abdel Nasser and the rise of Arab Nationalism, the political and economic power of oil and the conflict between secular and Islamic values. This multilayered, fascinating and definitive work is the essential guide to understanding the history of the modern Arab world - and its future.
Beautifully written yet highly controversial, An Image of Africa asserts Achebe's belief in Joseph Conrad as a 'bloody racist' and his conviction that Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness only serves to perpetuate damaging stereotypes of black people, while The Trouble with Nigeria is a searing outpouring of Achebe's frustrations with his country.
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
'A world-class scholar at the height of his powers . everything is deftly handled - from the German-Soviet pact to the Yalta Conference, from Babi-Yar to the Katyn massacre - without holding up the sweeping narrative' Orlando Figes, The Times In the course of human history there has probably been no more terrible place than Eastern Europe in 1941-5. Estimates of total Soviet military and civilian deaths in the period now stand at more than 25 million. In Russia's War, Richard Overy re-creates the Soviet Union's apocalyptic struggle against Germany from the point of view both of the troops and of the ordinary civilians.
'A dramatic and exciting tale . His set-piece descriptions of such visions of Hell as Stalingrad, the 900-day siege of Leningrad and the crucial battle of Kursk are as fascinating as they are horrifying' Alan Judd, Sunday Times 'Masterly . a vivid account' Robert Service, Independent 'Overy is a first-class military historian . He writes concisely and says what he means to say . Now, we have an authoritative British account that understands both sides, without illusions' Norman Stone, Spectator 'Excellent . Overy tackles this huge, complex and multifaceted story with the vital gifts of clarity and brevity' Antony Beevor, Literary Review
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Historybr>br>''Read it. It will open your eyes about race history in America. It will shock you for what it tells you about politics in America today.'' Richard Fordbr>br>''A remarkably wide-ranging synthesis of the history of the 1850s and the Civil War ... that effectively integrates in one volume social, political and military events from the immediate aftermath of the Mexican War through the sectional strife of the 1850s, the secession movement, and the Civil War ... It is a masterful work'' New York Review of Booksbr>br>''Compellingly readable ... the best one-volume treatment of its subject I have ever come across. It may be the best ever published ... This is magic'' The New York Timesbr>br>This book covers one of the most turbulent periods of the USA''s history, from the Mexican War in 1848 to the end of the Civil War in 1865. With a broad historical sweep, it traces the heightening sectional conflict of the 1850s: the growing estrangement of the South and its impassioned defence of slavery; the formation of the Republican Party in the North, with its increasing opposition to slavery; and the struggle over territorial expansion, with its accompanying social tensions and economic expansion. The whole panorama of the Civil War is captured in these pages, from the military campaign, which is described with vividness, immediacy, a grasp of strategy and logistics, and a keen awareness of the military leaders and the common soldiers involved, to its political and social aspects.>
The third volume of Steven Runciman's classic, hugely influential trilogy on the history of the Crusades 'The whole tale is one of faith and folly, courage and greed, hope and disillusion' Steven Runciman's triumphant three-volume A History of the Crusades remains an unsurpassed account of the events that changed the world and continue to resonate today. This final volume of the trilogy begins with the glamorous Third Crusade and ends with the ruinous collapse of the crusader states and the degeneration of their ideals, which reached its nadir in the tragic destruction of Byzantium. 'When historical events are written about with this sort of command, they take on not only the universality of a fairy tale but also a certain moral weight. Runciman writes both seductively and instructively about the dignity and beauty of different religious beliefs and about the difficulties of their co-existence' Independent
"Following up on his book on President Bush's foreign policy advisers, James Mann provides an equally insightful look at the team around President Obama, including the bright young advisers who have remained little known. His book shows how carefully calibrated the administration's policy has been and the key role that Obama has played himself." - Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs.
"James Mann has pioneered a new and immensely readable genre: an in-depth group portrait of foreign-policy advisers whose backgrounds and interactions help explain the worldview and policies of the president they serve. He did that superbly in "Rise of the Vumcans" about George W. Bush's inner circle, and he's done it again with The Obamians." - Strobe Talbott, president, The Brookings Institution.
"James Mann gives us valuable insight into the crafting of American foreign policy in President Obama's administration. He takes us behind the scenes and into the room where decisions are made on some of the most critical issues of ou time." - Nancy Pelosi.
"James Mann is unique among writers on contemporary Amrican foreign policy. He combines a reporter's eye for detail and ancedote with a scholar's grasp of the broad sweep of historical events. Essential reading for who want to understand the successes and failures of the current administration's approach to the world." - Aaron Friedberg, professor of politics and international affairs, Woodrow Wilson School.
In the newest volume in the award-winning Penguin History of American Life series, James R. Barrett chronicles how a new urban American identity was forged in the streets, saloons, churches, and workplaces of the American city. This process of "Americanization from the bottom up" was deeply shaped, Barrett argues, by the Irish. From Lower Manhattan to the South Side of Chicago to Boston's North End, newer waves of immigrants and African Americans found it nearly impossible to avoid the Irish. While historians have emphasized the role of settlement houses and other mainstream institutions in Americanizing immigrants, Barrett makes the original case that the culture absorbed by newcomers upon reaching American shores had a distinctly Hibernian cast. By 1900, there were more people of Irish descent in New York City than in Dublin; more in the United States than in all of Ireland. But in the late nineteenth century, the sources of immigration began to shift, to southern and eastern Europe and beyond. Whether these newcomers wanted to save their souls, get a drink, find a job, or just take a stroll in the neighborhood, they had to deal with Irish Americans. Barrett reveals how the Irish vacillated between a progressive and idealistic impulse toward their fellow immigrants and a parochial defensiveness stemming from the hostility earlier generations had faced upon their own arrival in America. They imparted racist attitudes toward African Americans; they established ethnic "deadlines" across city neighborhoods; they drove other immigrants from docks, factories, and labor unions. Yet the social teachings of the Catholic Church, a sense of solidarity with the oppressed, and dark memories of poverty and violence in both Ireland and America ushered in a wave of progressive political activism that eventually embraced other immigrants. Drawing on contemporary sociological studies and diaries, newspaper accounts, and Irish American literature, The Irish Way illustrates how the interactions between the Irish and later immigrants on the streets, on the vaudeville stage, in Catholic churches, and in workplaces helped forge a multi-ethnic American identity that has a profound legacy in the USA today.
This well-rounded selection of Abraham Lincoln's finest speeches combines the classic and obscure, the lyrical and historical, and the inspirational and intellectual to present a historical arc marking periods of the Civil War-crisis, outbreak, escalation, victory, and Reconstruction. Addressing the conflict's multiple aspects-the issue of slavery, state versus federal power, the meaning of the Constitution, civic duty, death, and freedom-this elegant keepsake collection will make a wonderful inspirational gift for professed Lincoln fans, Civil War buffs, and lovers of rhetorical genius.
In his surprising new book, critically lauded author James Mann trains his keen analytical eye on Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union, shedding new light on the hidden aspects of American foreign policy. Drawing on recent interviews and previously unavailable documents, Mann offers a new history assessing what Reagan did, and did not do, to help bring America's four-decade conflict with the U.S.S.R. to a close. Ultimately, The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan dispels the facile stereotypes surrounding America's fortieth president in favour of a levelheaded, cogent understanding of an often misunderstood man.
First published in 1971, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom is still the most important and authoritative book on this complex and often geopolitically significant country, marrying Hugh Thomas's unique skills as arguably the world's leading historian of Spanish-speaking peoples with an intricate and absorbing subject.
This book explores the whole sweep of Cuban history, from the British capture of Havana in 1762 through the years of Spanish and American domination up to the twentieth century and the extraordinary revolution of Fidel Castro. Throughout the 200-year period of its scope, the book analyses the political, economic and social events that have shaped Cuban history with extraordinary insight and panache. Encyclopaedic in range and breathtaking in execution, Cuba is surely one of the seminal works of world history.
British intellectual life between the wars stood at the heart of modernity. The Morbid Age opens a window on to this creative but anxious era, the golden age of the public intellectual and scientist: Arnold Toynbee, Aldous and Julian Huxley, H. G. Wells, Marie Stopes and a host of others.
Yet, as Richard Overy argues, a striking characteristic of so many of the ideas that emerged from this new age - from eugenics to Freud's unconscious, to modern ideas of pacifism and world government - was the fear that the West was facing a possibly terminal crisis of civilization. Ultimately, Overy shows, the coming of war was almost welcomed as a way to resolve the contradictions and anxieties of this period, a war in which it was believed civilization would be either saved or utterly destroyed.
