History

A vibrant history of the castle in Britain, from the early Middle Ages to the present day The castle has long had a pivotal place in British life, associated with lordship, landholding, and military might, and today it remains a powerful symbol of history. But castles have never been merely impressive fortresses--they were hubs of life, activity, and imagination.   John Goodall weaves together the history of the British castle across the span of a millennium, from the eleventh to the twenty-first century, through the voices of those who witnessed it. Drawing on chronicles, poems, letters, and novels, including the work of figures like Gawain Poet, Walter Scott, Evelyn Waugh, and P. G. Wodehouse, Goodall explores the importance of the castle in our culture and society.   From the medieval period to Civil War engagements, right up to modern manifestations in Harry Potter, Goodall reveals that the castle has always been put to different uses, and to this day continues to serve as a source of inspiration.

Dancing on Bones is the story of how the leaders of China, Russia, and North Korea manipulate the past to serve the present and secure the future of authoritarian rule.History didn't end. Democracy didn't triumph. America's leading role in the world is no longer assured. Instead, authoritarian rule is on the rise, and the global order established after 1945 is under attack. This is the phenomenon Katie Stallard tackles in Dancing on Bones, probing the version ofhistory that leaders in China, Russia, and North Korea teach their citizens.These three states consistently top the list of threats to the global order and US national security. All are governed by autocratic regimes. All have nuclear weapons and believe that the era of American hegemony is fading. All three share a sense of historical grievance, rooted in the wars of thelast century - specifically World War II and the Korean War - that their leaders exploit to shore up popular support at home and fuel increasingly aggressive foreign policy. Decades after the real guns fell silent, these wars rage on in China, Russia, and North Korea, reimagined in popular media,public memorials, and patriotic education campaigns. This is not history as it was, but as the current rulers need it to be. Since coming to power in China, Xi Jinping has almost doubled the length of the war with Japan, Vladimir Putin has brought back bombastic military parades through Red Square,and Kim Jong Un has invested vast sums in rebuilding war museums in his impoverished state, while historians who try to challenge the official line are silenced and jailed. But this didn't start with the current leaders and it won't end with them.Drawing on first-hand, on-the-ground reporting, Dancing on Bones is the story of how the leaders of China, Russia, and North Korea manipulate the past to serve the present and secure the future of authoritarian rule. If we want to understand where these three nuclear powers are heading, we mustunderstand the stories they are telling their citizens about the past.

The first international history of the emergence of economic sanctions during the interwar period and the legacy of this development   "Valuable . . . offers many lessons for Western policy makers today."--Paul Kennedy, Wall Street Journal   "The lessons are sobering."--The Economist   "Original and persuasive. . . . For those who see economic sanctions as a relatively mild way of expressing displeasure at a country's behavior, this book . . . will come as something of a revelation."--Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affairs   Economic sanctions dominate the landscape of world politics today. First developed in the early twentieth century as a way of exploiting the flows of globalization to defend liberal internationalism, their appeal is that they function as an alternative to war. This view, however, ignores the dark paradox at their core: designed to prevent war, economic sanctions are modeled on devastating techniques of warfare.     Tracing the use of economic sanctions from the blockades of World War I to the policing of colonial empires and the interwar confrontation with fascism, Nicholas Mulder uses extensive archival research in a political, economic, legal, and military history that reveals how a coercive wartime tool was adopted as an instrument of peacekeeping by the League of Nations. This timely study casts an overdue light on why sanctions are widely considered a form of war, and why their unintended consequences are so tremendous.

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year"A critical, poignant postmortem of the epidemic."--Washington Post"Forceful and instructive...Sabeti and Salahi uncover competition, sabotage, fear, blame, and disorganization bordering on chaos, features that are seen in just about any lethal epidemic."--Paul Farmer, cofounder of Partners in Health"The central theme of the book...is that common threads of dysfunction run through responses to epidemics...The power of Outbreak Culture is its universality."--Nature"Sabeti and Salahi present a wealth of evidence supporting the imperative that outbreak response must operate in a coordinated, real-time manner."--ScienceAs we saw with the Ebola outbreak--and the disastrous early handling of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic--a lack of preparedness, delays, and system-wide problems with the distribution of critical medical supplies can have deadly consequences. Yet after every outbreak, the systems put in place to coordinate emergency responses are generally dismantled.One of America's top biomedical researchers, Dr. Pardis Sabeti, and her Pulitzer Prize-winning collaborator, Lara Salahi, argue that these problems are built into the ecosystem of our emergency responses. With an understanding of the path of disease and insight into political psychology, they show how secrecy, competition, and poor coordination plague nearly every major public health crisis and reveal how much more could be done to safeguard the well-being of caregivers, patients, and vulnerable communities. A work of fearless integrity and unassailable authority, Outbreak Culture seeks to ensure that we make some urgently needed changes before the next pandemic.

A searing - and sobering - account of the legal and extra-legal means by which systemic white racism has kept Black Americans 'in their place' from slavery to police and vigilante killings of Black men and women, from 1619 to the present.From the arrival of the first English settlers in America until now - a span of four centuries - a minority of white men have created, managed, and perpetuated their control of every major institution, public and private, in American society. And no group in America has suffered more from the harmsimposed by white men's laws than African Americans, with punishment by law often replaced by extra-legal means. Over the centuries, thousands of victims have been murdered by lynching, white mobs, and appalling massacres.In White Men's Law, the eminent scholar Peter Irons makes a powerful and persuasive case that African Americans have always been held back by systemic racism in all major institutions that can hold power over them. Based on a wide range of sources, from the painful words of former slaves to testscores that reveal how our education system has failed Black children, this searing and sobering account of legal and extra-legal violence against African Americans peels away the fictions and myths expressed by white racists. The centerpiece of Irons' account is a 1935 lynching in Fort Lauderdale,Florida. The episode produced a photograph of a blonde white girl of about seven looking at the hanging, bullet-riddled body of Rubin Stacy, who was accused of assaulting a white woman. After analyzing this gruesome murder and the visual evidence left behind, Irons poses a foundational question:What historical forces preceded and followed this lynching to spark resistance to Jim Crow segregation, especially in schools that had crippled Black children with inferior education? The answers are rooted in the systemic racism - especially in the institutions of law and education - that AfricanAmericans, and growing numbers of white allies, are demanding be dismantled in tangible ways.A thought-provoking look at systemic racism and the legal systems that built it, White Men's Law is an essential contribution to this painful but necessary debate.

Today, South Asians are a rapidly growing demographic in the United States, comprising nearly 2 percent of the population. But there was a time in the not-too-distant past when the United States was far less hospitable to South Asian immigrants. In fact, until 1952, only white immigrants could become naturalized American citizens. Yet in the first half of the twentieth century, many states still had thriving communities of South Asians.    In Here to Stay, Geetika Rudra, a second-generation Indian immigrant and American history buff, takes readers on a journey across the country to unearth the little-known histories of earlier generations of South Asian Americans. She visits storied sites such as Oregon's "Hindoo Alley," home to many lumber workers at the turn of the century, and Angel Island, California's immigration hub. She also introduces readers to such inspiring figures as Bhagat Singh Thind, an immigrant who had enlisted in the U.S. Army to serve his adopted country in World War I, but who was later denied citizenship and took his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In turns both serious and joyful, this book vividly reveals how South Asians have always been a vital part of the American tapestry.

A comprehensive, richly illustrated guide to Japan's astonishing animals and plants--and the natural forces that have shaped them This richly illustrated guide is the first comprehensive and accessible introduction to the extraordinary natural history of the Japanese archipelago. It explains how Japan's geology, geography, climate, seas and currents have forged conditions supporting a diverse range of species--from cranes, bears, eagles and monkeys to plants, butterflies, dragonflies, frogs and snakes--many of which are found nowhere else in the world. Engaging and authoritative, this book is a must-have for anyone who wants to explore or learn about Japan's natural wonders, from the Japanese Macaque--the famous snow monkeys--to the magnificent Steller's Eagle. Features more than 878 colour photographs, illustrations and maps Provides a lavishly illustrated introduction to many of Japan's common and iconic mammals and birds Takes readers on a naturalist's journey to the key areas of Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku and Nansei Shoto, as well as the Izu, Ogasawara and Iwo islands Introduces Japan's geology, geography, topography, climate, habitats, biodiversity and much more Explains where and how to watch and photograph wildlife in Japan, including whales

The European Union, we are told, is facing extinction. Most of those who believe that, however, have no understanding of how, and why, it become possible to imagine that the diverse peoples of Europe might be united in a single political community.The Pursuit of Europe tells the story of the evolution of the "European project", from the end of the Napoleonic Wars, which saw the earliest creation of a "Concert of Europe", right through to Brexit. The question was how, after centuries of internecine conflict, to create a united Europe whilestill preserving the political legal and cultural integrity of each individual nation. The need to find an answer to this question became more acute after two world wars had shown that if the nations of Europe were to continue to play a role in the world they could now only do so together.To achieve that, however, they had to be prepared to merge their zealously-guarded sovereign powers into a new form of trans-national constitutionalism. This the European Union has tried to do. In the process it has created not, as its enemies have claimed, a "super-state" but a new post-nationalorder united in a political life based, not upon the old shibboleths of nationalism and patriotism, but upon a common body of values and aspirations.It is this, argues Anthony Pagden, that will allow the Union to defeat its political enemies from within, and to overcome the difficulties, from mass migration to the pandemic, which it faces from without. But it will only succeed in doing so if it also continues to evolve as it has over the pasttwo centuries.

From schoolyard thug to Russian president: Putin's rise to power comes under the microscope Darryl Cunningham (Billionaires) returns with the riveting life story of Vladimir Putin, Russia's infamous autocrat. He traces Putin's development from schoolyard thug in Soviet-era Leningrad, to KGB officer, to corrupt commodities dealer, all the way to his presidency and beyond. In this educational andfrank biography, Putin's journey is characterized by shifting loyalties, brutal treatment of detractors, and lawless financial dealings. Despite all of this, Putin has retained public support and tremendous importance in Russian society, due to his ever-tightening control over the media and harsh muzzling of critics. Born in 1952, Putin grew up idealizing the KGB, and he became a member of its ranks by early adulthood. Cunningham posits that the speed with which Putin advanced politically was a reflection of the KGB's need to cement their control of the Russian political system after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since Boris Yeltsin appointed him to the presidency in 2000, Putin has annexed Crimea, rolled back democratic reforms, and led a life of luxury, all the while fostering a cult of personality. In Putin's Russia, Cunningham situates the contentious leader in an analytical framework that is at times hilarious and always compelling. >

A relationship beset with extraordinary acrimony, the US and Iran rarely see eye-to-eye, if only to avoid war or nuclear catastrophe. What is at the core of this troubled rivalry that has stymied policymakers and scholars alike? Using a carefully selected collection of White House, CIA, State Department, and other records, Worlds Apart provides a comprehensive answer to this question: starting from the 1979 revolution and hostage crisis, through the Iran-Iraq War and the spread of radical Islam, to 9/11 and the nuclear impasse, to the 2009 Green Movement and the Obama and Trump presidencies. The records, which form the heart of the book, offer a rare, unfiltered view into the perspectives and experiences of the American and Iranian governments over 40 years. Providing timelines, glossaries, discussion questions, and a guide on reading declassified documents, Byrne and Byrne explore this complicated relationship accessibly and innovatively in this unique documentary history.