An armed uprising. A conspiracy. An assassination. A hanging. These events, starting with the crushing of Jacobite rebels at Culloden in 1746 and culminating six years later in the so-called Appin Murder, provided Robert Louis Stevenson with the plot of his enduringly popular novel Kidnapped. But truth can be every bit as dramatic as fiction. And never more so than in this account of what lay behind the killing of government officer Colin Campbell by a hidden gunman on a May afternoon in 1752.
Campbell was on his way to evict rebels from the Ardshiel estate near Appin, and Britain
Although 1759 is not a date as well known in British history as 1215, 1588, or 1688, there is a strong case to be made that it is the most significant year since 1066. In the two great battles of 1759, Britain effectively beat France for global supremacy and founded the first British Empire. From the almost uninterrupted series of victories that year came momentous consequences. Victory in the East, in India and the Philippines, which in turn led to the colonisation of Australia and New Zealand. Victory in North America secured Canada for the empire and, by removing the French, created the conditions which inspired American rebellion. Until now, the story of the causes and consequences of The Seven Years War (1756-63) has been largely obscured. As Thackeray famously remarked in Barry Lindon, it would take a theologian, rather than an historian, to unravel the true causes. Drawing on a mass of primary materials - from texts in the Vatican archives to oral histories of the North American Indians - Frank McLynn shows how the conflict between Britain and France triggered the first 'world war', raging from Europe to Africa; the Caribbean to the Pacific; the plains of the Ganges to the Great Lakes of North America, and also brought about the War of Independence, the acquisition by Britain of the Falkland Islands and ultimately, The French Revolution.
IRISH is the story of the mass migration from Ireland in the wake of the Great Famine of the mid-nineteenth century. It is an epic account of th coming together of a nation and a city. Those who fled were all escaping a nightmare existence in the poorest and most deprived country in Europe - this is their tale. IRISH! brings to life the horror pf those grim days and reveals the unimaginable suffering endured by the Irish as a result of the Potato Blight. It describes in vivid detail the hazards and hardships faced by the thousands fleeing the country in search of a better life overseas, including a startling account of one of the most deplorable maritime crimes ever committed, the voyage of the SS LONDONDERRY. The coming of the Irish to Glasgow had a bigger impact on the city than any other event. It is a subject many have said no writer would successfully tackle. John Burrowes has undertaken two years of painstaking research into the most significant and stirring episode in the history of Glasgow, and now for the first time the truth is vividly unfolded. IRISH! brings the tale of the Irish migration to Scotland to life. It tells of the contribution made by Irish labourers in Glasgow to the Industrial Revolution; reveals that the legendary football clubs of Celtic and Rangers may never have existed were it not for the migrants' arrival; and describes the 'Partick War',
Dozens of missions set out for the Arctic during the first half of the nineteenth century; all ended in failure and many in disaster, as men found themselves starving to death in the freezing wilderness, sometimes with nothing left to eat but their companions' remains. Anthony Brandt traces the complete history of this noble and foolhardy obsession, which originated during the sixteenth century, bringing vividly to life this record of courage and incompetence, privation and endurance, heroics and tragedy. Along the way he introduces us to an expansive cast of fascination characters: seamen and landlubbers, scientists and politicians, sceptics and tireless believers.
The Man Who Ate His Boots is a rich and engaging work of narrative history - a multifaceted portrait of noble adventure and of imperialistic folly.
People, not abstract ideas, make history, and nowhere is this more revealed than in A. N. Wilson's superb portrait of the Victorians, in which hundreds of different lives have been pieced together to tell a story - one which is still unfinished in our own day. The 'global village' is a Victorian village and many of the ideas we take for granted, for good or ill, originated with these extraordinary, self-confident people. What really animated their spirit, and how did they remake the world in their view? In an entertaining and often dramatic narrative, A. N. Wilson shows us remarkable people in the very act of creating the Victorian age.
Towards the end of 1831, the authorities unearthed a series of crimes at Number 3, Nova Scotia Gardens in East London that appeared to echo the notorious Burke and Hare killings in Edinburgh three years earlier. After a long investigation, three bodysnatchers were put on trial for supplying the anatomy schools of London with suspiciously fresh bodies for dissection.They later became known as The London Burkers, and their story was dubbed
The journals of Robert Devereux, one of the leaders of the revolutionary Young Ireland group of 1848, have lain undiscovered for more than a century on a hop farm in Tasmania. Uncovered, they tell the story of a highly unusual rebel.Robert Devereux is an exceptional yet divided spirit: a man of romantic sensibility who is also a man of action - calling on his people to take up arms against the British. In this, he is a spiritual father of Sinn Fein, and the IRA.
Towards the end of 1831, the authorities unearthed a series of crimes at Number 3, Nova Scotia Gardens in East London that appeared to echo the notorious Burke and Hare killings in Edinburgh three years earlier. After a long investigation, it became known that a group of body snatchers - two men in particular, John Bishop and Thomas Williams, called the 'London Burkers' - were supplying the anatomy schools with fresh 'examples' for dissection. The case became known as 'The Italian Boy' and caused a furore which led directly to the passing of controversial legislation which marked the beginning of the end of body snatching in Britain. The case revealed something else as well: some extremely unpleasant aspects of life in London, a city that had increased in size by one-third to over one-and-a-half million inhabitants between 1801 and 1831, and which was continuing to expand at a phenomenal and unprecedented rate. In The Italian Boy, Sarah Wise not only investigates the case of the London Burkers but also, by making use of an incredibly rich archival store, the lives of ordinary lower-class Londoners. She shows how the case challenged their notions of community and criminality, and how it made many feel that at the heart of their great city lay unknown, unknowable mysteries. Here is a window on the lives of the poor - a window which is opaque in places, shattered in others - but which provides an unprecedented view of low-life London in the 1830s.
'Who was this man Charles Edward Stuart who became known to legend as Bonnie Prince Charlie?' Frank McLynn pursues this fascinating question in his highly acclaimed study of the 'Young Pretender', whose unsuccessful challenge to the Hanoverian throne was followed by the crushing defeat at Culloden in 1746. The prince was to play out the rest of his career dogged by a sense of failure and betrayal. Yet Frank McLynn argues powerfully that failure was far from inevitable and history in 1745 came closer to taking a quite different turn.
In 1887 Government inspectors were sent to investigate the Old Nichol, a notorious slum on the boundary of Bethnal Green parish, where almost 6, 000 inhabitants were crammed into thirty or so streets of rotting dwellings and where the mortality rate ran at nearly twice that of the rest of Bethnal Green. Among much else they discovered that the decaying 100-year-old houses were some of the most lucrative properties in the capital for their absent slumlords, who included peers of the realm, local politicians and churchmen. The Blackest Streets is set in a turbulent period of London
Although 1759 is not a date as well known in British history as 1215, 1588, or 1688, there is a strong case to be made that it is the most significant year since 1066. In the two great battles of 1759, Britain effectively beat France for global supremacy and founded the first British Empire. From the almost uninterrupted series of victories that year came momentous consequences. Victory in the East, in India and the Philippines, which in turn led to the colonisation of Australia and New Zealand. Victory in North America secured Canada for the empire and, by removing the French, created the conditions which inspired American rebellion. Until now, the story of the causes and consequences of The Seven Years War (1756-63) has been largely obscured. As Thackeray famously remarked in Barry Lindon, it would take a theologian, rather than an historian, to unravel the true causes. Drawing on a mass of primary materials - from texts in the Vatican archives to oral histories of the North American Indians - Frank McLynn shows how the conflict between Britain and France triggered the first 'world war', raging from Europe to Africa; the Caribbean to the Pacific; the plains of the Ganges to the Great Lakes of North America, and also brought about the War of Independence, the acquisition by Britain of the Falkland Islands and ultimately, The French Revolution.