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This magisterial history juxtaposes events in Paris, New York and London from 1765 to 1795, when the first two were convulsed by revolution, and the third came close. Drawing on archives, letters and travelogues, the book vividly evokes a world in which aristocrats, lawyers, artisans and society hostesses passionately debated the issues of liberty, justice and the social order, and assesses how those momentous years have shaped the political and physical fabric of all three cities to this day.

This book explores the lives and achievements of three unconventional, creative women, and the sacrifices they made for the egotistical artists they loved. Fernande Olivier (1881–1966) was Picasso’s first love and muse; Sophie Brzeska (1873–1925) lived with the sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, 19 years her junior, until he was killed in the First World War; and Ida Nettleship (1877–1907) bore five children to Augustus John while living in a ménage à trois with him and his mistress.

This history of the Battle of Isandlwana (1879), which saw British expeditionary troops defeated by Zulu warriors, eschews colonial romanticism and recognizes Isandlwana as a ‘magnificent Zulu victory against an invading army with superior arms.’ Referencing numerous sources, including maps, photographs and the letters of Commander-in-Chief Lord Chelmsford, the book explores Chelmsford’s misguided preparations for the conquest of Zululand, the Zulus’ superiority in the field, and the attempt to cover up Chelmsford’s culpability.

John Castle, an artist and adventurer of mixed English and Prussian descent, was commissioned by the Russian Empire to join an expedition to secure the region north of what is now Kazakhstan. His remarkable diary, translated here for the first time, recounts his perilous journey and contains vivid descriptions of the peoples, places and customs he encountered. Castle’s own drawings depict the Khan, his yurt, and life on the steppe.

Published in 1840 by Adam and Charles Black of Edinburgh, this ‘Picturesque Tourist’ guide promises ‘engraved charts and views of the scenery, plans of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and a copious itinerary’. Arranged as 14 tours, the guide also assures the reader of accurate, plain and intelligible accounts, with much information on tradition, history and associations – a swipe at the purple prose of rival guides. The present book is a facsimile reprint of the first edition. No jacket.

Rather than the masters and commanders, Marcus Rediker's history takes a bottom-up approach, looking at the maritime history of the Atlantic from the viewpoint of sailors, slaves, indentured servants, pirates, smugglers and rebels. In the 'age of wooden ships and iron men' he shows how Jack Tar, as sailors were commonly known, influenced the wider histories of political thought, literature and commerce, and how revolutionary ideas were generated among the motley (or multi-ethnic) crews of the Atlantic.

‘Love is three quarters curiosity,’ said Giacomo Casanova, whose name has become a byword for seduction. Though he was born in poverty in Venice, his intelligence, ambition and charm gained him entry to the courts of England, Russia and France – and to the beds of countless beautiful, aristocratic women. This biography exposes his life in rich, intimate detail, and paints a dazzling portrait of 18th-century Europe from serving girls to kings and courtiers.

The crowds of immigrants, merchants, sailors, slave traders and soldiers passing through the colonial port of 19th-century Liverpool provided an ideal cover for gang-led criminality and drink-fuelled depravity. This entertaining survey of Liverpool’s Victorian underworld presents a litany of crime stories, including murder, robbery, prostitution and bodysnatching, many of which involved sailor gangs like the notorious Packet Rats. The presence of Irish Catholic immigrants in the city, as Archibald points out, also raised tensions.

Divorced wife, scandalous mistress, prisoner during the French Revolution and reputed mother of the Prince of Wales’s child, Grace Dalrymple Elliott had little choice but to live off her wits and her beauty. This biography not only charts her adventures in London and Paris, buts sets her swashbuckling life against the social history of the Georgian era, and explores her far-flung family connections that extended to France, America, India and Africa.

This true crime book investigates some of the lesser-known murders, robberies and misdemeanours committed in 19th century Scotland; and while it pursues a thematic approach to crime, including poisoning, rural murders and drink-related offences, it also reserves stand-alone chapters for the Dundee Museum Robbery and the Siege of John Street. Archibald is keen to contrast the romantic ‘glens and bens’ notion of Scotland with the reality of a cruel and desperate criminal underworld.

This guide tells how Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power in post-revolution France, transforming its political and social landscape while simultaneously battling the great European powers that would eventually hasten his demise.

Alarmed by the French Revolution, the rulers of Georgian Britain established a network of spies and informers to infiltrate and monitor radical groups at home. Drawing on official records and contemporary accounts, this compelling history probes the shadowy world of government agents pitted against Irish rebels, Luddites, the Pentrick uprising of 1817 and the 1820 plot to murder the cabinet. In vivid prose, the book recreates a climate of fear and repression, in which even peaceful reformers risked arrest.

Life in a 19th-century kitchen could be tough and exacting, and staff below stairs needed a broader range of skills than ever before, as new and exotic ingredients were arriving from around the Empire. Using case studies and detailed research, Karen Foy examines Victorian cuisine through the seasons (with some recipes), and discusses useful tools and the sourcing of ingredients as well as introducing early cookery writers, including Catherine Dickens.

Despite their unprepossessing parents, the six daughters of George III and Queen Charlotte were remarkably good-looking; commissioned to paint portraits of the children, Gainsborough was enraptured with the girls’ beauty. His paintings are among the illustrations in this first complete account of all six daughters: Charlotte, Princess Royal, later Queen of Württemberg (1766–1828); Augusta Sophia (1768–1840); Elizabeth, Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg (1770–1840); May, Duchess of Gloucester (1776–1857); Sophia (1777–1848) and Amelia (1783–1810).

It took three days for the outcome of the battle of Waterloo to reach London. Described by Sir Tony Robinson as 'a fascinating eye-opener', this book draws on untapped records to reveal the story of how the momentous news was brought from the battlefield via feverish horseback journeys, a Channel crossing delayed by falling tides and a flat calm, and the final dash by coach-and-four from the Kent coast to a grand soirée in St James's Square.

Volume 2 profiles the ‘Campbells of the Ark’ whose surname was not Campbell, followed by chapters on people named in other Gaelic poems and a detailed study of the Argyllshire Militia.

Volume 1 introduces Alexander MacDonald, An Àirce and the Clan Campbell, then presents biographies of the 31 Campbells mentioned in the song, analysing the poet’s verdicts.

Happily married, but insolvent, Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau (1785–1871) and his wife Lucie devised a plan to save their beloved estate: they would divorce and Pückler would go to England to marry an heiress. Based on the prince’s letters reporting his progress to Lucie, this book is a blow-by-blow account of Pückler’s courtships, but also a portrait of Regency England through the eyes of an intelligent, observant and, at one point, lovesick fortune hunter.

A century of religious tolerance in France came to an end with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. French Protestants, or Huguenots, were relentlessly persecuted, and many fled to England. In the remote Cévennes, however, villagers clung to their faith. This groundbreaking history charts the little-known conflict of 1702–4, when shepherds and farmers went into combat singing psalms, holding the armed might of the French state at bay for two years before their eventual defeat.

Georgiana Lennox met the Duke of Wellington at a ball organized by her mother on the eve of Waterloo. Using a wealth of unpublished material, this beautifully illustrated book charts an intimate friendship that lasted a lifetime.

Written by Colonel Vaughan of the 7th Rajputs, this is a colourful account of the expedition to relieve the International Legations – 900 soldiers, marines and citizens of eleven foreign powers, including Britain – besieged in Peking for 55 days during the Boxer Uprising. The book covers Vaughan’s perilous march from the coast to Peking, the capture of the Legations Quarter and the subsequent occupation of Peking. An extensive foreword is complemented by maps, photographs and watercolours by the author.

An empire was dying, but the band played on, reeling out one intoxicating waltz after another: Voices of Spring, Tales from the Vienna Woods, The Blue Danube… This absorbing narrative tells the story of the two Waltz Kings, Johann Strauss father and son, whose melodies beguiled Europe even as the family was riven with tension, jealousy and feuds, mirroring the dysfunction of the Austrian Empire as it danced and drank its way to catastrophe.

Against the view of a liberal, commercial Anglo-American empire of the early 18th century, Stephen Saunders Webb argues that the American provinces, on a war footing, became capitalist, coercive and aggressive owing to their leaders: career army officers, trained and nominated to office by the captain general of the allied armies, the first Duke of Marlborough. His influence, according to Webb, prevailed throughout the 18th century in America.

In the 1790s, a small British ship, the Hankey, set sail on a mission to establish a colony free from slavery. Drawing on archives from several continents, this book tells the little-known story of how an altruistic project had disastrous consequences that changed the course of history: the ship brought yellow fever to the Americas, causing tens of thousands of deaths, assisting the revolution in Haiti and prompting Napoleon to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States.

In the 19th century, homicidal poisoning was considered a grave threat to society, yet prosecutors were commonly frustrated by lack of evidence. Stratmann chronicles how, during a century-long battle of wits between the law, medicine and the public, the new science of forensic toxicology evolved to thwart the poisoner’s art. Painful death, post-mortems and executions darken a gripping narrative that includes, among others, the notorious cases of Eliza Fenning and Betty Eccles.

This follow-up to The First Anglo-Sikh War chronicles the the fall of the Sikh Empire and the annexation of the Punjab by the British East India Company, a victory that would provide the British Army with a reliable source of soldiers for a century. Singh’s compelling narrative, supported by transcripts of significant treaties and proclamations, places the many sieges and battles, from Multan and Chillianwala to the decisive Gujrat, in the context of a fast-changing political and military landscape.

The Regency, which lasted from 1811 to 1820, was more than a political period – it was a style, a fashion, a state of mind. Illustrated in colour, this compact introduction charts the era’s extraordinary outpouring of creativity: the writing of Austen, Byron and Shelley, the paintings of Turner and Constable, the architecture of Nash and Soane, and the sartorial elegance of Beau Brummell.

Published in 1805, Marcus Rainsford’s book was the first complete account in English of the Haitian Revolution. As a captain of the Third West India Regiment, Rainsford had arrived in British-occupied St Domingo on Hispaniola in 1797, and experienced at first hand the insurrection and the proclamation of Haiti as a nation. His sympathetic account of the revolutionaries is presented here, with introduction and notes by Paul Youngquist and Grégory Pierrot.

Over the past two centuries, France has experimented with virtually every form of government. This collection of essays and reviews by one of America’s foremost observers of France reflects on the Enlightenment and the Revolution, Robespierre and Napoleon, the Vichy regime and the situation of French Jews, the Arab Spring and the terrorist attacks of 2015. Lively, informed, wide-ranging and highly readable, the book offers a unique insight into ‘the most intense political laboratory the world has ever known’.

The fourth volume of Peter Ackroyd’s epic History of England begins in 1688 with a revolution and ends in 1815 with a victory. Against a vivid backdrop of coffee houses and playhouses, it charts the creation of those pillars of modern Britain, the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange, the rise of newspapers, the birth of the novel, and the technological developments that transformed England from a land of green fields to one of iron and coal.

Every family has its skeletons, but in 1823 the aristocratic Wallops were about to have theirs laid bare to the world. This compulsively written, meticulously researched 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.

This is the final volume of Morris’s Pax Britannica trilogy, charting the decline and dissolution of the British Empire from the Boer Wars to the death of Winston Churchill. Read by Roy McMillan. Abridged.

A snapshot of the Empire at the Diamond Jubilee, this second volume looks at everything from adventurers to infrastructure, and at how imperial ideologies affected its 370 million people. Read by Roy McMillan. Abridged. 6 CDs 7hrs 19mins

The first volume of the trilogy covers the period from the accession of Victoria in 1837 to the Diamond Jubilee in 1887. Read by Roy McMillan. Abridged. 6 CDs 7hrs 30mins