A Short History of Byzantium" is renowned historian & author of "A History of Venice" John Julius Norwich's classic history of Byzantium. Constantine the Great moved the seat of Roman power to Constantinople in AD 330 & for eleven brutal bloody centuries the Byzantine Empire became a beacon of grand magnificence & depraved decadence... Here then are the centuries dominated by ferocious arguments over the nature of Christ & his Church. By knowledge where scholars & scribes preserved the heritage of the ancient world. By emperors like Justinian the Great & Basil the Bulgar-Slayer
- men pious heroic or monstrous. By creativity as art & architecture soared to new heights. In this abridgement of his celebrated trilogy John Julius Norwich provides the definitive introduction to the savage scintillating world of Byzantium. " Norwich has the gift of historical perspective as well as clarity & wit. Few can tell a good story better than he". (" Spectator"). "A real-life epic of love & war accessible to anyone". (" Independent on Sunday"). " Norwich tells a remarkable story with boundless zest. He offers character sketches of the appalling personages who infest his narrative.. .with the assurance of a Macauley or a Gibbon". (" Daily Telegraph"). John Julius Norwich was born in 1929. He was educated at Upper Canada College Toronto at Eton at the University of Strasbourg & after a spell of National Service in the Navy at New College Oxford where he took a degree in French & Russian. In 1952 he joined the Foreign Service where he remained for twelve years serving at the embassies in Belgrade & Beirut. In 1964 he resigned from the service to write. He is the author of histories of Norman Sicily the Republic of Venice & the Byzantine Empire. He has written & presented some thirty historical documentaries on television & is a regular lecturer on Venice & numerous other subjects."
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Richard Hammond has had a longstanding love affair bordering on the obsessive some might say with caravans. He has researched their origins & history celebrity owners the uses to which they have been put their place in history names jargon games with things to do in recipes to cook in & future of. He also gives sound practical advice on how to use them to best advantage race them (ensuring first they are of the non-static variety) & how to destroy them in interesting ways (of which he has much experience
- 80 or so at the last count). An essential guide for any owner or prospective owner or indeed anyone with even a passing interest in caravans of whatever sex or age or race or inclination. Or even perhaps someone with apparently no interest in caravans who might have a previously latent interest aroused. Some even talk in hushed tones of a parallel universe though he has no personal experience of this yet. Anything is possible.
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This is a definitive concise account of our remarkable past. From the Battle of Catterick (AD 598) to the premiership of Tony Blair one of Britains most respected journalists Simon Jenkins weaves together a strong narrative with all the most important & interesting dates in a book that characteristically is as stylish as it is authoritative. There have been long synoptic histories of England but until now there has been no standard short work covering all significant events themes & individuals. Published with the support of the National Trust & beautifully illustrated this magisterial history will be the standard work for years to come. ...

This is the definitive concise account of our remarkable past. Which battle was fought ' For England Harry & St George'? Who demanded to be painted 'warts & all'? What
- & when
- was the Battle of the Bulge? In A Short History of England" bestselling author Simon Jenkins answers all these questions
- & many more
- as he tells the tumultuous story of a fascinating nation. From the invaders of the dark ages to today's coalition via the Tudors the Stuarts & two world wars Jenkins weaves together a gripping narrative with all the most important & interesting dates in his own inimitable style. Until now there has been no short history of England covering all significant event themes & individuals: this bestselling book published in association with the National Trust will be the standard work for years to come."



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Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller: but even when he stays safely in his own study at home he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization
- how we got from there being nothing at all to here being us. Bill Bryson's challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us like geology chemistry & particle physics & see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. It's not so much about what we know as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth or what a black hole is or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? On his travels through time & space he encounters a splendid collection of astonishingly eccentric competitive obsessive & foolish scientists like the painfully shy Henry Cavendish who worked out many conundrums like how much the Earth weighed but never bothered to tell anybody about many of his findings. In the company of such extraordinary people Bill Bryson takes us with him on the ultimate eye-opening journey & reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.
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A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Brysons quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization
- how we got from there being nothing at all to here being us. His challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us & see if there isnt some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. Its not so much about what we know as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth or what a black hole is or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? On his travels through time & space Bill Bryson takes us with him on the ultimate eye-opening journey & reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before. -A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Brysons quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization
- how we got from there being nothing at all to here being us. His challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us & see if there isnt some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. Its not so much about what we know as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth or what a black hole is or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? On his travels through time & space Bill Bryson takes us with him on the ultimate eye-opening journey & reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

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Palaeolithic hunters who learnt how to kill two mammoths instead of one had made progress. Those who learnt how to kill 200
- by
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The years of the Spanish Civil War filled twentieth-century Spain with hope frustration & drama. Not only did it pit countryman against countryman & neighbour against neighbour but from 1936-39 this bitterly contended struggle sucked in competing & seemingly atavistic forces that were soon to rage across the face of Europe & then the rest of the world: nationalism & republicanism; communism & fascism; anarchism & monarchism; anti-clerical reformism & aristocratic Catholic conservatism. The Guerra Civil" is of enduring interest precisely because it represents much more than just a regional contest for power & governmental legitimacy. It has come to be seen as a seedbed for the titanic political struggles & larger social upheavals that scarred the entire twentieth century. In elegant & accessible prose Julian Casanova tells the gripping story of these years of anguish & trauma which hit the country with a force hitherto unknown at any time in Spains history. Charting the most significant events & battles alongside the main players in the tragedy he provides answers to some of the pressing questions (such as the roots & extent of anti-clerical violence) that have been asked in the seventy years that have passed since the painful defeat of the Second Republic." ...

The Wars of the Roses (c. 1455-1487) are renowned as an infamously savage & tangled slice of English history. A bloody thirty-year struggle between the dynastic houses of Lancaster & York they embraced localised vendetta (such as the bitter northern feud between the Percies & Nevilles) as well as the formal clash of royalist & rebel armies at St Albans Ludford Bridge Mortimer's Cross Towton Tewkesbury & finally Bosworth when the usurping Yorkist king Richard III was crushed by Henry Tudor. Powerful personalities dominate the period: the charismatic & enigmatic Richard III immortalized by Shakespeare; the slippery Warwick the Kingmaker' who finally over-reached ambition to be cut down at the Battle of Barnet; & guileful women like Elizabeth Woodville & Margaret of Anjou who for a time ruled the kingdom in her husband's stead. David Grummitt places the violent events of this complex time in the wider context of fifteenth-century kingship & the development of English political culture. Never losing sight of the traumatic impact of war on the lives of those who either fought in or were touched by battle this captivating new history will make compelling reading for students of the late medieval period & Tudor England as well as for general readers. ...

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" is bestselling author Marina Lewycka's hilarious & award winning debut novel. ' Two years after my mother died my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four & she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade churning up the murky water bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside.' Sisters Vera & Nadezhda must aside a lifetime of feuding to save their emigre engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear & boil-in-the-bag cuisine she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth. But the sisters' campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets uncovers fifty years of Europe's darkest history & sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget..." It's rare to find a first novel that gets so much right... Lewycka is a seriously talented comic writer". (" Time Out"). " Hugely enjoyable...yields a golden harvest of family truths". (" Daily Telegraph"). " Delightful funny touching". (" Spectator"). Bestselling author Marina Lewkyca has received great critical acclaim since the publication of her hilarious first novel "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" in 2005 which was the winner of the Bollinger Everyman Prize for Comic Fiction 2005 winner of the Saga Award for Wit 2005 shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2005 & longlisted for the Booker prize 2005. Her other humorous novels " Two Caravans" (published as Strawberry Fields in the USA & Canada) " We Are All made from Glue" & " Various Pets Alive & Dead" are also available from Penguin." ...