History Year by Year

$70.00 NZD

Category: History

How to Survive the Titanic or the Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay by Frances Wilson

$37.00 NZD

Category: History

Books have been written, films made, we have raised the Titanic and watched her go down again on numerous occasions, but out of the wreckage Frances Wilson spins a new epic: when the ship hit the iceberg on 14 April 1912 and a thousand men prepared to die, J Bruce Ismay, the ship's owner and inheritor o f the White Star fortune, jumped into a lifeboat with the women and children and rowed away to safety. Accused of cowardice, Ismay became, according to one headline, 'The Most Talked-of Man in the World'. The first victim of a press hate campaign, his reputation never recovered and while other survivors were piecing together their accounts, Ismay never spoke of his beloved ship again. With the help of that great narrator of the sea, Joseph Conrad, whose Lord Jim so uncannily predicted Ismay's fate - and whose manuscript of the story of a man who impulsively betrays a code of honour and lives on under the strain of intolerable guilt went down with the Titanic - Frances Wilson explores the reasons behind Ismay's jump, his desperate need to make sense of the horror of it all, and to find a way of living with lost honour. For those who survived the Titanic the world was never the same again. But as Wilson superbly demonstrates, we all have our own Titanics, and we all need to find ways of surviving them. ...Show more

Titanic: The Tragic Story of the Ill-fated Ocean Liner by Rupert Matthews

$20.00 NZD

Category: History

An Incomplete History of World War II by Edwin Kiester

$20.00 NZD

$35.00 (42% off)

Category: History

This title takes readers on an eccentric journey through extraordinary, heroic and seminal episodes, from the storming of Beijing by the Japanese in 1937, to Rudolph Hess's 1941 'mission of peace' in Scotland, to Claus von Stauffenberg, the man who almost killed Hitler in 1944.

A Short History of the World by Geoffrey Blainey

$47.00 NZD

Category: History

A superb history of the world's people during the last four million years, beginning before the human race moved out of Africa to explore and settle the other continents. Mr. Blainey explores the development of technology and skills, the rise of major religions, and the role of geography, considering b oth the larger patterns and the individual nature of history. A delightful read, gracefully written, and full of odd and interesting pieces of information as well as thoughtful comparisons that span both time and space. -William L. O'Neill ...Show more

MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949 by Keith Jeffery

$37.00 NZD

Category: History | Reading Level: From

A groundbreaking book, this unprecedented study is the authoritative account of the best-known intelligence organisation in the world. Essential reading for anyone interested in the history of espionage, the two world wars, modern British government and the conduct of international relations in the fi rst half of the twentieth century, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949 is a uniquely important examination of the role and significance of intelligence in the modern world. ...Show more

1492: The Year Our World Began by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

$29.99 NZD

Category: History | Reading Level: very good

The world would end in 1492 - so the prophets, soothsayers and stargazers said. They were right. Their world did end. But ours began. In search of the origins of the modern world, 1492 takes readers on a journey around the globe of the time, in the company of real-life travellers, drawing together the t hreads that began to bind the planet: from the way power and wealth are distributed around the globe to the way major religions and civilizations divide the world. Events that began in 1492 even transformed the whole ecological system of the planet. Wars and witchcraft, plagues and persecutions, poetry and prophecy, science and magic, art and faith - all the glories and follies of the time are in this book. ...Show more

The King's Speech by Mark Logue

$37.00 NZD

Category: History | Reading Level: very good

One man saved the British Royal Family in the first decades of the 20th century - he wasn't a prime minister or an archbishop of Canterbury. He was an almost unknown, and self-taught, speech therapist named Lionel Logue, whom one newspaper in the 1930s famously dubbed 'The Quack who saved a King'. Logue wasn't a British aristocrat or even an Englishman - he was a commoner and an Australian to boot. Nevertheless it was the outgoing, amiable Logue who single-handedly turned the famously nervous, tongue-tied Duke of York into one of Britain's greatest kings after his brother, Edward VIII, abdicated in 1936 over his love of Mrs Simpson. This is the previously untold story of the remarkable relationship between Logue and the haunted future King George VI, written with Logue's grandson and drawing exclusively from his grandfather Lionel's diaries and archive. It throws an extraordinary light on the intimacy of the two men, and the vital role the King's wife, the late Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, played in bringing them together to save her husband's reputation and reign. The King's Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy is an astonishing insight into a private world. Logue's diaries also reveal, for the first time, the torment the future King suffered at the hands of his father George V because of his stammer. Never before has there been such a personal portrait of the British monarchy - at a time of its greatest crisis - seen through the eyes of an Australian commoner who was proud to serve, and save, his King. ...Show more

The Making of America: The History of the United States from 1492 to the Present by Robert D. Johnston

$65.00 NZD

Category: History

From the first contact of Europeans with Native Americans in 1492 to the current events of the 21st century, this comprehensive volume makes the story of America interesting and fun for today' s visually oriented kids. Major eras and social movements unfold chronologically. Each chapter includes biograp hies of two key people and a " Great Debate" focusing on some heated issue of that era and an explanation of its relevance today. Throughout the book, the roles and accomplishments of men and women of various racial and ethnic backgrounds are represented. Intriguing period art and photography bring people and events to life while specially designed maps make it easy for kids to follow the growth of our nation. Time lines, historic documents and speeches, a guide to historic sites, a list of Presidents, statehood dates, additional resources, and a detailed index further enhance this valuable family reference. ...Show more

Zulu Rising: The Epic Story of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift by Ian Knight

$30.00 NZD

Category: History

The battle of iSandlwana was the single most destructive incident in the 150-year history of the British colonisation of South Africa. In one bloody day over 800 British troops, 500 of their allies and at least 2000 Zulus were killed in a staggering defeat for the British empire. The consequences of the battle echoed brutally across the following decades as Britain took ruthless revenge on the Zulu people. In "Zulu Rising", Ian Knight shows that the brutality of the battle was the result of an inevitable clash between two aggressive warrior traditions. For the first time, he gives full weight to the Zulu experience and explores the reality of the fighting through the eyes of men who took part on both sides, looking into the human heart of this savage conflict. Based on new research, including previously unpublished material, Zulu oral history, and new archaeological evidence from the battlefield, this is the definitive account of a battle that has shaped the political fortunes of the Zulu people to this day. ...Show more

Rome: A Cultural History by Robert Hughes

$60.00 NZD

Category: History

Rome - as a city, as an empire, as an enduring idea - is in many ways the origin of everything Robert Hughes has spent his life thinking and writing about with such dazzling irreverence and exacting rigour. In this magisterial book he traces the city's history from its mythic foundation with Romulus and Remus to Fascism, Fellini and beyond. For almost a thousand years, Rome held sway as the spiritual and artistic centre of the world. Hughes vividly recreates the ancient Rome of Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, Nero, Caligula, Cicero, Martial and Virgil. With the artistic blossoming of the Renaissance, he casts his unwavering critical eye over the great works of Raphael, Michelangelo and Brunelleschi, shedding new light on the Old Masters. In the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when Rome's cultural predominance was assured, artists and tourists from all over Europe converged on the city. Hughes brilliantly analyses the defining works of Caravaggio, Velasquez, Rubens and Bernini. Hughes' Rome is a vibrant, contradictory, spectacular and secretive place; a monument both to human glory and human error. This deeply personal account reflects his own complex relationship with a city he first visited as a wide-eyed twenty-year-old, thirsting for the sights, sounds, smells and tastes he had only read about or seen in postcard reproductions. In equal parts loving, iconoclastic, enraged and wise, peopled with colourful figures and rich in unexpected details, ROME is an exhilarating journey through the story of one of the world's most timelessly fascinating cities. ...Show more

The Arabs: A History by Eugene Rogan

$32.00 NZD

Category: History

Eugene Rogan has written an authoritative new history of the Arabs in the modern world. 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. ...Show more