The Pendle witchcraft case is a compelling human story & also provides a dramatic insight into the importance of magic in the lives of our ancestors. This book offers a detailed account of the extraordinary events that took place in Lancashire in 1612 focusing on James & Alizon Device the teenage brother & sister at the centre of the case. It draws on a wealth of sources including books of magic & trial records to evoke a world of magicians & cunning folk of charms divination & familiar spirits. It is illustrated with photographs of magical objects in the Museum of Witchcraft in Cornwall & of a modern family recreating seventeenthcentury spells & rituals. Taking a thought-provoking new approach to the history of witchcraft it conjures a vivid picture of what it was like to be someone who practised magic during the witch-hunts. ...

The steel pan is the only musical instrument to have been invented in the 20th century. The story begins in Trinidad in the Caribbean where the people first begin to use all kinds of metal objects to make music. They collected a wide variety of assorted tins & shaped them & tuned them until they were turned into musical instruments. From Trinidad the mighty steel orchestra has spread across the world.

Includes:: a CD of Sterling's Angels (children's steel band led by Pan Maestro Sterling Betancourt) playing a range of music.

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Our understanding of world history is changing as new discoveries are made on all the continents & old prejudices are being challenged. In this truly global journey Andrew Marr revisits some of the traditional epic stories from classical Greece & Rome to the rise of Napoleon but surrounds them with less familiar material from Peru to the Ukraine China to the Caribbean. He looks at cultures that have failed & vanished as well as the origins of todays superpowers & finds surprising echoes & parallels across vast distances & epochs. This is a book about the great change-makers of history & their times people such as Cleopatra Genghis Khan Galileo & Mao but it is also a book about us. For the better we understand how rulers lose touch with reality or why revolutions produce dictators more often than they produce happiness or why some parts of the world are richer than others the easier it is to understand our own times. Fresh exciting & vividly readable this is popular history at its very best. ...

In August 2010 Wylie Overstreet published a satirical article called If Historical Events Had Facebook Statuses" on the website Cool Material.com. Within a month it had received 3 million views & had been liked by over 170 000 Facebook users. In " The History of the World According to Facebook" Overstreet expands this concept into a full-length history of the world from its creation up through present day as if Facebook had existed all along & Abraham Lincoln had written a status update about taking the missus to the theater on April 15 1865 & Ben Franklin had done the same alerting his network that hed signed the Declaration of Independence (Bring it replied John Adams). Filled with hundreds of real-life historical figures & thousands of not-at-all-real Facebook statuses comments & actions & parodying Facebook users proclivity to over-share & use lazy jargon (lol rofl fml etc.) this is the definitive humor book for our generation." ...

Beginning with an unlikely stowaways account of life on board Noahs Ark A History of the World in 10 Chapters presents a surprising subversive fictional history of earth told from several kaleidoscopic perspectives. Noah disembarks from his ark but he & his Voyage are not forgotten: they are revisited in on other centuries & other climes
- by a Victorian spinster mourning her father by an American astronaut on an obsessive personal mission. We journey to the Titanic to the Amazon to the raft of the Medusa & to an ecclesiastical court in medieval France where a bizarre case is about to begin... This is no ordinary history but something stranger a challenge & a delight for the readers imagination. Ambitious yet accessible witty & playfully serious this is the work of a brilliant novelist.
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Neil Mac Gregor's A History of the World in 100 Objects" takes a bold original approach to human history exploring past civilizations through the objects that defined them. Encompassing a grand sweep of human history "A History of the World in 100 Objects" begins with one of the earliest surviving objects made by human hands a chopping tool from the Olduvai gorge in Africa & ends with objects which characterise the world we live in today. Seen through Mac Gregor's eyes history is a kaleidoscope
- shifting interconnected constantly surprising & shaping our world today in ways that most of us have never imagined. A stone pillar tells us about a great Indian emperor preaching tolerance to his people; Spanish pieces of eight tell us about the beginning of a global currency; & an early Victorian tea-set speaks to us about the impact of empire. An intellectual & visual feast this is one of the most engrossing & unusual history books published in years. " Brilliant engagingly written deeply researched". (Mary Beard " Guardian"). "A triumph: hugely popular & rightly lauded as one of the most effective & intellectually ambitious initiatives in the making of 'public history' for many decades". (" Sunday Telegraph"). " Highly intelligent delightfully written & utterly absorbing". (Timothy Clifford " Spectator"). " This is a story book vivid & witty shining with insights connections shocks & delights". (Gillian Reynolds " Daily Telegraph"). Neil Mac Gregor has been Director of the British Museum since August 2002. His latest book " Shakespeare's Restless World" is an enthralling exploration of Shakespeare's world & of the minds of his audiences based on Neil Mac Gregor's new 20-part BBC Radio 4 series. Mac Gregor was previously Director of the National Gallery in London from 1987 to 2002."
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Jerry Brotton is the presenter of the acclaimed BBC4 series Maps: Power Plunder & Possession". Here he tells the story of our world through maps. Throughout history maps have been fundamental in shaping our view of the world & our place in it. But far from being purely scientific objects world maps are unavoidably ideological & subjective intimately bound up with the systems of power & authority of particular times & places. Mapmakers do not simply represent the world they construct it out of the ideas of their age. In this scintillating book Jerry Brotton examines the significance of 12 maps
- from the mystical representations of ancient history to the satellite-derived imagery of today. He vividly recreates the environments & circumstances in which each of the maps was made showing how each conveys a highly individual view of the world
- whether the Jerusalem-centred Christian perspective of the 14th century Hereford Mappa Mundi or the Peters projection of the 1970s which aimed to give due weight to 'the third world'. Although the way we map our surroundings is once more changing dramatically Brotton argues that maps today are no more definitive or objective than they have ever been
- but that they continue to make arguments & propositions about the world & to recreate shape & mediate our view of it. Readers of this book will never look at a map in quite the same way again."


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Throughout history maps have been fundamental in shaping our view of the world & our place in it. But far from being purely scientific objects maps of the world are unavoidably ideological & subjective intimately bound up with the systems of power & authority of particular times & places. Mapmakers do not simply represent the world they construct it out of the ideas of their age. In this scintillating book Jerry Brotton examines the significance of 12 maps
- from the almost mystical representations of ancient history to the satellite-derived imagery of today. He vividly recreates the environments & circumstances in which each of the maps was made showing how each conveys a highly individual view of the world. Brotton shows how each of his maps both influenced & reflected contemporary events & how by reading it we can better understand the worlds that produced it. Although the way we map our surroundings is changing Brotton argues that maps today are no more definitive or objective than they have ever been but that they continue to define shape & recreate the world. Readers of this book will never look at a map in quite the same way again.
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Stretching from the Ice Ages to the present day this masterful account traces the political social & cultural history of the land that has come to be called Wales. Spanning prehistoric hill forts & Roman ruins to the Reformation the Industrial Revolution & the series of strikes by Welsh miners in the late twentieth century this is the definitive history of an enduring people: a unique & compelling exploration of the origins of the Welsh nation its development & its role in the modern world. This new edition brings this remarkable history into the new era of the Welsh Assembly. ...

The definitive history of Britain's busiest rail terminal written by a long term commuter to the station & bulging with illustrations. Waterloo Station has a massive 91 million passenger movement every year. It has more platforms & a greater square footage of floor space than any other station in Britain & is second in terms of train movements. The main facade erected in 1920 is now a listed heritage building. In terms of size importance & bustle there is quite simply nothing like Waterloo. In this book retired commuter John Fareham looks at the history trains & diverse range of characters that have made Waterloo what it is today. Built in 1848 as a small station for the London Southampton Railway Company Waterloo grew with that company over the years until by 1913 it had become a vast sprawling & confusing mass of rails & platforms. A planned rebuilding was delayed the Great War but began in 1919 & was completed in 1920 creating the core station we see today. More developments in the 1990s & in 2012 saw the station enlarged & renovated. In this amusing enthralling & engaging book we meet the characters who have worked at Waterloo or who have used it. We see the key events in the history of the station. We look behind the scenes at the hidden warren of rooms & tunnels never seen by passengers. A fascinating & engaging book guaranteed to be of interest to all users of this mighty station. ...