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As an informal political organization, the Husayni family of Jerusalem dominated Palestinian history for almost 250 years. In this meticulously detailed history, Ilan Pappe traces the rise of the dynasty from a provincial Ottoman elite clan in the early 1700s to its leadership of the Palestinian national movement in the 20th century.

This detailed history of the famous shoot-out sets out to build the most accurate picture possible of the people behind the many fictionalized versions of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, and their altercations with the Clantons and the McLaurys. The author sets this against the context of the growth and decline of the west, particularly Tombstone and the Mexican border.

Gareth Glover, a long-time Napoleonic war researcher, has annotated and published for the first time letters and journals in the Waterloo Archives. This volume features the accounts of British soldiers from senior ranks to common soldiers, including the poignant final letters of Major Arthur Heyland, more boisterous accounts of bordello visits and recollections of plundering local farmhouses.

This volume comprises archive material from British sources, by men of all ranks in the cavalry, infantry and artillery. The many revealing details include failed horse charges, friendly fire, letters from surgeons attending casualties and the camaraderie among Peninsular veterans, with authors such as Sir Hussey Vivan; Frederick Ponsonby, who describes his battlefield wounding; and Daniel Mackinnon, famous for the defence of Hougoumont.

Writing his popular Sharpe novels about the Peninsular War, Bernard Cornwell drew on these memoirs more than any other first-hand accounts. '[Schaumann] had an eye for detail and an enthusiasm for campaign life that makes him the most immediate of all the war's chroniclers', Cornwell writes in his foreword to this edition.

First published in 1894, when the author was still able to interview participants in the war, this book includes accounts of turning points from the Redan and the bombardment of Odessa and Bomarsund to the close of the campaign.

It is often claimed that the internet has subverted the hierarchies that have governed the world for millennia, but in this volume Niall Ferguson argues that informal networks have always been the driving force for innovation. From ancient Roman cults to Renaissance dynasties and the American founding fathers, he demonstrates how personal relationships rather than orders from on high have shaped the world. Slightly off-mint and felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

Marseille’s wealthy merchants were strongly opposed to the influence of the French monarchy, which saw the port’s commerce with the Ottoman Empire as central to the enrichment of the state. In her analysis of the period from 1660 to the plague of 1720, Takeda shows how the Crown co-opted the city’s traditions of civic virtue to extend its own power.

Every family has its skeletons, but in 1823 the aristocratic Wallops were about to have theirs laid bare to the world. This biography tells the dramatic story of the Third Earl of Portsmouth. Wealthy and well-connected, a friend of Byron and Jane Austen, he was widely considered a harmless eccentric until – amid accusations of blackmail, abduction and sodomy – his own family set out to have him declared insane in a trial that scandalized the nation.

Drawing on contemporary sources including diaries, letters, newspapers and trial proceedings as well as Jane Austen's own correspondence and writings, Roy and Lesley Adkins have created a wide-ranging and richly detailed social history of English life in the early 19th century that offers new perspectives on the world of the great novelist. Covering everything from childbirth, education and work to the darker side of Georgian society, poverty and crime, the book provides an illuminating companion to Austen's novels.

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Based on 40 years of research, this well illustrated volume offers insights into the life and career of Gouthière (1732–1813), and a definitive catalogue raisonné of his work. Credited with inventing matt gilding, he secured clients including the Duke of Aumont and Madame Du Barry and was held in such esteem that hundreds of items were attributed to him, yet he fell into obscurity and this is the first major study of him for over a century.

Both born in 1769, Napoleon and Wellington were as different in background and temperament as the countries for which they fought. This study follows their rivalry through the campaigns leading up to the Battle of Waterloo, when they met for the first time, and in its aftermath. It assesses their contrasting military techniques, and includes maps of the Peninsular War and the Waterloo campaign.

Whether it was an expensive daguerreotype, a piece of studio trickery, or a carte de visite, the Victorians were fascinated by photography, and by portraits in particular. Using contemporary texts and images, Robert Pols describes the experience of the 19th-century photographic studio from the subjects’ point of view, exploring why and how they chose a photographer, pose or style, and their uses for the finished products.

This concise introduction covers many aspects of Victorian society: class, religion, gender roles, the city and the empire. It considers how British views of the era have changed, and how it has shaped the modern world, from the infrastructure of British politics and culture to the global struggles of the post-colonial era.

In the 1790s Britain experienced what Edmund Burke called ‘a revolution in sentiments’: Hewitt shows how the French Revolution inspired British radicals to incorporate raw emotion into reformist ideals concerning sex, education, commerce and medicine. However, while this had enduring political effects, the aspirations of Enlightenment figures including Samuel Coleridge, William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Wedgwood went unfulfilled as the ensuing Terror led to political crackdowns in Britain.

Mark Braude tells the story of Napoleon's first exile, from his downfall and failed suicide attempt to his return to power in France. He focuses on the emperor’s irrepressible character, revealed through extensive reforms of his tiny realm, establishing courts, a theatre, drainage systems and new crops, and the build-up to his return to power and the Battle of Waterloo.

Published by the History of Parliament Trust to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the modern Commonwealth, this illustrated history traces its evolution, from the earliest English colonies in America and the Caribbean, through the demise of Empire and milestones such as the London Declaration of 1949, to the present diverse, informal and resilient organization. In telling that history, the book’s emphasis is on the influence of English, then British, representative democracy on political institutions throughout the Commonwealth.

This first-hand account of the Peninsular War covers the 1812 advance to Aranjuez, the winter retreat and the 1813 campaign which pushed the French pushed back across the Ebro. As well as giving an insight into the military operations, the book includes personal observations of the countryside, customs and people, and an overview of the career of Captain Webber, who was wounded at Waterloo.

Historian Anthony Dawson draws on previously unpublished sources to cast new light on the most destructive war of the nineteenth century. Focusing on the Siege of Sevastopol, during which artillery bombardments, dysentery, cholera and the freezing winter exacted a huge death toll, the book highlights particular aspects including the storming of the Redan and the Mamelon, and the Battle of the Tchernaya, the Russians’ desperate attempt to break the siege.

Jean-Baptiste Barrès joined Napoleon's Imperial Guard in 1804 and was present at notable events such as the emperor’s coronations in Paris and Rome, the torchlight procession on the eve of Austerlitz, and the meeting of the two Emperors at Tilsit. His memoir modestly recounts such experiences and gives an insight into the everyday life of a Napoleonic soldier who saw conflict in numerous military engagements.

Heinrich von Brandt was an intrepid young Polish soldier who fought for Napoleon from Madrid to Moscow. This memoir describes his career, in which he was severely wounded three times, and experienced the siege of Saragossa, Spanish guerrilla warfare, the crossing of the Niemen and the retreat from Moscow, and gives a direct insight into the minds of the soldiers involved in such gruelling engagements.

From the blockade and siege of Toulon in 1793, in which Bonaparte first made his name, to his escape from Elba in 1815, naval operations in the Mediterranean were a critical aspect of the Napoleonic Wars. Drawing on an array of primary sources, this study describes the ebbs and flows of the 20-year conflict that included the set-piece battles of the Nile and Lissa and brought to prominence Horatio Nelson.

First published as part of Fortescue’s A History of the British Army in 1920, this classic account is presented here as a single volume. Illustrated with maps and battle plans, it details the tactics deployed by both sides in every engagement from Napoleon’s escape from Elba in March 1815 to his final defeat at Waterloo in June.

This volume presents the papers of the Admiral of the Fleet Sir Alexander Milne (1806–1896), who did not see action in war, but whose service career can be viewed as a microcosm of the Navy during the years 1815–1900, the so-called Pax Britannica, and whose papers illustrate how the Navy was employed on behalf of the liberal state. With a substantial introduction and notes. Publications of the Navy Records Society. Vol 162. No jacket.

Challenging established views of Jacobite historiography, this volume of 14 essays shifts the focus away from the Stuart court in exile, rebellion and espionage, to explore issues including migrant Jacobite communities, commercial and intellectual networking, material and literal cultures, and the liturgical underpinning of Jacobitism.

Elana Pavlovna Romanova was born Charlotte of Württemberg, a royal princess, in 1807; in 1823, aged 16, she went to Russia to marry the Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich. This biography describes the life of the grand duchess and her significant contributions to social welfare, medicine, science, music and the emancipation of serfs in 1861.

Presenting in full the correspondence between President Lyndon B Johnson and Harold Wilson over the four years between Wilson becoming Prime Minister in 1964 and LBJ leaving the White House in 1969, this volume illuminates the two leaders’ stated hopes of Anglo-American ‘close and friendly cooperation’ and how they were challenged by issues including the Vietnam War, Rhodesia, the Middle East, relations with the USSR and the Monetary crisis.

Sometimes referred to as magistrates’ courts, police courts in 19th-century Scotland dealt with around 85 percent of all civic and criminal offences and they were where urban dwellers were most likely to experience and interact with the law. This volume provides an institutional, social and cultural history of the courts’ establishment, development and functioning. .

Bringing together recent scholarship on the War of 1812, this collection of 20 essays starts with Jeremy Black’s overview of the international context of the War, then explores topics including the impact of privateering, the multiple wars of the First Nations and the various theatres, from the northern lakes to the Gulf coast.

The War of the Spanish Succession was fought across much of Europe, but this history focuses on the lesser-known campaign in Spain itself. It examines the size and composition of the British and Dutch forces fighting under the Duke of Marlborough and charts all the engagements in this theatre, from smaller skirmishes to Almanza. Historic paintings, prints and maps, alongside new colour plates, illustrate the narrative.

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Sue Mowat’s scholarly history of the local events and people of 17th-century Dunfermline addresses three key themes: the fire of 1624 that destroyed half the town and its linen industry; the wars of the 1640s; and the extremely poor state of the town’s finances, made worse by the poor harvests of the 1690s. Slightly off-mint.

Lady Anne Barnard lived at the heart of Georgian society – the Prince of Wales was a friend, and Walter Scott admired her verses – but her defiance of convention made her an outsider. Drawing on her unpublished papers, including six volumes of memoirs, this biography brings the poet, musician, artist and hostess vividly to life, and tells how she travelled to France to observe the Revolution, married an army officer twelve years her junior, and raised an illegitimate child.

Georgian houses are admired for their elegance, but less attention has been given to what it was like to live in them. In a ‘nosy, gossipy, and utterly engaging’ study of English homes, Vickery examines a wide range of accommodation and types of household, using sources ranging from personal diaries to court records. She investigates not only how homes were furnished and decorated but also how social and cultural changes revolutionized the use of domestic space. Slightly off-mint.

As their nation stood on the brink of Civil War, Americans were captivated by a new postal service that, for just 18 months, carried mail almost 2,000 miles across the continent using a relay of daring young horseback riders. In this book the coauthor of American Sniper explores the origins and development of the Pony Express, debunks myths that quickly grew up around it and considers its lasting relevance as a symbol of American enterprise. Slightly off-mint with felt tip mark on upper trimmed edge. American-cut pages.

Challenging the conventional narratives of cotton mills and inspired innovators, Priya Satia argues that the constant state of war and Britain’s thriving gun trade were driving forces in the Industrial Revolution. Discussing the economic impact of war on political and industrial progress, she scrutinizes the claims by Samuel Galton Jnr, the leading gun manufacturer, that his industry was no worse than any other as everyone was participating in war manufacturing, and that guns were instruments of civilization, essential for preserving property. Slightly off-mint and felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

This new, more extensively illustrated edition of the authoritative 1990 work shows how, in the years after the Battle of Waterloo, British warships developed from sail and wood to steam and iron, culminating in the world’s first iron-hulled, seagoing battleship, HMS Warrior. Written by a naval architect, it progresses from the structural innovations of Robert Seppings (1767–1840) to subsequent refinements of steam and the paddle-fighting ship, metal hulls and screw propulsion, and the evolving role of the Royal Navy.

Born in Moscow in 1971, Evgeny Kissin made his concert debut at the age of ten and is now internationally renowned for his interpretation of the classical and Romantic piano repertoire. In this collection of reminiscences he answers some of the questions that he is most often asked – about his childhood, his early teachers and his encounters with the world’s great musicians – and muses on topics including fame, inspiration and his favourite composers. Slightly off-mint.

Ideal for helping with school projects, the Eyewitness series explores the natural world and human history. Topics include dinosaurs and oceans as well as periods and events from Ancient Egypt to the Second World War, with illustrations and concise text explaining hundreds of facts and figures. Age 9+

Beginning in 1896, when the first edition of the Daily Mail launched a new style of journalism designed to provide entertainment, appeal to women, and create news as well as report it, this study examines continuities and changes in the content of popular newspapers. In chapters on war, politics, monarchy and celebrity, gender and sexuality, class and race, the authors look at how the tabloid press has shaped British society.

In 1780 the anti-Papist Gordon riots left 1,000 dead and London in flames; half a century later Parliament passed the Catholic Emancipation Act. This narrative history charts the struggles that brought about that conclusion. It profiles the key players, including George III, a staunch opponent of emancipation; the political rivals Wellington and Peel; and the Irish campaigner Daniel O’Connell; and examines the conflict between the right to practise one’s religion and allegiance to the state.

A powerful statesman and inscrutable diplomat, Saionji led a delegation committed to achieving racial equality and international influence. Their lack of success and the Conference’s compromise – the granting of colonial territory – sowed the seeds of further conflict. Slightly off-mint.

From the Act of Union with Ireland in 1800 to the Liberal Party’s landslide victory in 1906, Cannadine breaks new ground in the history of the 19th century, exploring the ‘many contradictions of progress’ during the United Kingdom’s era of national greatness and imperial aggrandisement. He emphasizes how stable, parliamentary democracy was crucial to Britain’s success, but also explores the darker side of British life and the challenges facing a global power. Part of The Penguin History of Britain series.

During the Great Siege of Gibraltar (1779–83), the longest ever endured by the British, the powerful forces of Spain and France blockaded and assaulted the isle from land and sea. Thousands of civilians and soldiers experienced starvation, disease and deadly bombardment. Including maps and illustrations, this book explores the story of the siege and its impact on life back home, while examining the argument that it ultimately cost the British the American War of Independence.

In 1794 during the war against Revolutionary France, the first Earl Grey led a Caribbean campaign to capture Martinique and Guadalope. Supported by maps and illustrations, this book demonstrates that although the campaign ultimately failed, the unorthodox tactics that were deployed showed a flexibility that would influence several notable subalterns who went on to success in Wellington's Peninsular army and Royal Artillery and, in the case of Richard Fletcher, the Royal Engineers.

Accused of having an affair with a boy, William Beckford (1760–1844) retired to his estate at Fonthill, Wiltshire, where he constructed a faux-medieval abbey to house his art and antiquities. This book draws on contemporary records to detail his grandiose building plans, and to tell how, having spent his inherited wealth, he was forced to auction both his collection and the building itself, whose huge Gothic tower came crashing down soon after the sale.

One of the most inglorious events of Nelson’s career concerned the fate of the short-lived republic established in Naples by revolutionary France. Drawing on accounts by Nelson himself, Lady Hamilton and others, this book tells how, after being offered safe passage, the republicans were handed over to the besieging Royalists, from whom they received no mercy. It also investigates whether Nelson was personally guilty of this betrayal, or whether the orders came from London.

‘Oh, if the queen were a man, she would like to go and give those horrid Russians ... such a beating!’ wrote Victoria; while in Russia, Alexander III described the queen as a ‘pampered, sentimental, selfish old woman’. In this study of the hostility between the British and Russian royal courts, Coryne Hall begins with the disastrous marriage of Princess Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saarfeld, Victoria’s ‘Aunt Julie’, to Grand Duke Constantine in 1795, then traces 60 years of the queen’s fear and distrust of the Romanov dynasty.

The Charge of the Light Brigade, Gordon’s Last Stand, Scott of the Antarctic: many of the best-known episodes in British history are tales of fortitude and calm in the face of disaster. This study of the ‘heroic failure’ tradition offers a reassessment of Victorian and Edwardian attitudes to soldiers and explorers, arguing that Britons’ enthusiastic celebration of such failures resulted from their desire to see the Empire as just, benevolent and moral.

‘By the seventeenth century the detection, conviction, and punishment of illegitimate lethal violence were firmly and irrevocably tied to the central government.’ Matthew Lockwood’s study shows how definitions of legitimate and illegitimate violence were negotiated in coroners’ courts from the late 15th century and gradually gave government the power to enforce a monopoly of violence – a basic prerequisite of a modern state.

Focusing on one critical year, this study identifies the developments that paved the way for the prosperity of Victorian Britain. It demonstrates how, amid widespread poverty and disease, industry flourished and railways spread across the land, bringing millions from the countryside to the cities, while Robert Peel’s abolition of the Corn Laws split the Tory party and ushered in an era of free trade.

Captured after Waterloo, Napoleon was held aboard HMS Bellerophon off the Devon coast. This book records the forgotten episode in which he became a magnet for celebrity seekers who would row out to catch a glimpse of the captive emperor as he paced the deck.

A long-time foreign correspondent in France, Jonathan Fenby explores the tensions between the country’s republican ideal of unity and its internal divisions, and examines how French society and culture have been shaped by the events of the last 200 years. This history offers a portrait of a nation that is proud of its heritage but struggling to find its role in the 21st century. Slightly off-mint.

In 1799 an uneasy Anglo-Russian alliance, formed as part of the Second Coalition against France, landed troops in Holland to overthrow the Batavian Republic, a French satellite, and reinstate Willem V of Orange. Van Uythoven gives a comprehensive account of this ‘Secret Expedition’ and its background, from the creation of the Batavian Republic, through the invasion and the battles of Zijpe, Bergen, Alkmaar and Castricum, to the Armistice and the state of the armies at the end of the campaign.

Fresh from victory over Sweden, Peter the Great took on the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, only to be defeated. This book examines the causes of the conflict, and the size, composition and tactics of the armies. Their uniforms are illustrated in specially commissioned artwork.

When Britain found itself at war with revolutionary France in 1793, its army was chronically underfunded, undermanned and poorly disciplined. This study analyses the recruitment, training and organization instituted by Sir Ralph Abercromby, which turned it into an effective fighting force, and offers a detailed account of its victorious campaign against the French Army of the Orient in Egypt in 1801.

Foreign correspondents risk their own safety to report from the most dangerous places in the world, and are often witnesses to pivotal moments in history. In this celebration of the profession, John Simpson recalls his experiences in Kosovo, Kabul and Baghdad and tells the stories of past and present journalists including Martha Gellhorn, Ernest Hemingway, Don McCullin and Marie Colvin, offering an insight into the origin, development and practice of this most challenging occupation.

The son of a provincial merchant, Prince Arfa rose to the heights of Iranian politics. His memoir, written shortly before his death in 1936, records the decline of the Persian Empire, and his time as Minister Plenipotentiary at the Russian court of Nicholas II.

In 1741, with Britain at war with Spain, HMS Wager was wrecked on an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile. Drawing on survivors’ accounts, this book tells the story of the 36 men, led by Gunner Bulkeley, who mutinied and set off in an open boat with no chart. Their 2,500-mile journey to Brazil, through some of the world’s most dangerous seas, was an epic feat of navigation and survival.

One of Scotland’s foremost citizens of the early 18th century, John Erskine (1675–1732), Earl of Mar was active in politics and in architecture, landscape and infrastructure planning. He made important contributions to building in Scotland, particularly in his native Alloa and, in exile in France after his support for the 1715 Rising, he continued designing and planning. This aspect of Mar’s life, rather than his controversial politics, is the focus of Margaret Stewart’s richly illustrated study.

Elizabeth Lamb – ‘Lady M’ to her friend Lord Byron – was one of the brightest and most influential political hostesses of late Georgian London. Drawing on diaries, archives and letters, including her extensive correspondence with Byron, this biography reveals how she used her looks, charisma and wealth to climb socially, forging friendships with significant figures including Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, the Whig leader Charles James Fox, the playwright Sheridan and the future George IV, who became her lover. Editorial error: Family Tree not included. Slightly off-mint.

Focusing on the stories of ordinary men and women who worked as servants in the homes of the middle classes, this book gives a ‘warts and all’ history of domestic service. In each of four periods, Michelle Higgs first surveys the work, conditions and social issues of the day before introducing the servants and their testimony, from Mary Ann Ashford, general servant, housemaid and cook in 1800, to Amy Jones, a 14-year-old general servant and nursemaid in 1945.

The sex trade flourished openly and profitably in Georgian England, particularly in the area around London’s Covent Garden. This illustrated history considers how the ‘oldest profession’ permeated all classes – from the courtesans who plied their trade within the very highest echelons of society right down to the common prostitutes who walked the streets – and examines how the scene was portrayed by the letter writers, journalists, satirists and caricaturists of the time.