Showing titles in 19th Century

To get a sense of the kind of prestige that Claude Monet enjoys within the art world, one need only learn that his Le Bassin Aux Nympheás (1919) - from his series of paintings featuring water lilies - sold for the equivalent of more than $70 million. This is a staggering price, especially considering that early in his life, Monet had been so poor and debt-ridden that some of his paintings were taken from him by creditors.

The world is filled with mysteries, and even in the modern age, much of the planet remains unexplored. The depths of the oceans and the intricate and extensive cave systems that honeycomb some parts of the Earth are still largely unknown. Thus, it should come as no surprise that when it comes to this terra incognita, people have projected all sorts of ideas.

The Battle of Waterloo has become synonymous with the word defeat, but who lost, and why was it important? In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte left the island of Elba and, in a space of 100 days, took power and challenged the entire world to meet him on his terms. When that failed, he offered them a fight, one that would end at Waterloo, and left repercussions which can still be felt, even now, centuries later.

The Battle of Antietam was a turning point in the Civil War. In the span of several hours, there would be more loss of American life than in any other battle before or since, leaving one in four of the soldiers who took part either dead or wounded by the end of the day. What led to such a disastrous conclusion? And could something positive come from such an appalling massacre? The focus of the war was about to change. So, too, was how the American people viewed war as a whole.

The Indian Ocean was the final battleground for Nelson's navy and France. At stake was Britain's commercial lifeline to India: and its strategic capacity to wage war in Europe.

Invalid teenager Leroy Wiley Gresham left a seven-volume diary spanning the years of secession and the Civil War. He was just 12 when he began, and he died at 17, just weeks after the war ended. LeRoy’s diary offers an inside look at a fateful journey that robbed an energetic and likeable young man of his youth and life. I Am Perhaps Dying adds considerably to the medical literature by increasing our understanding of how tuberculosis attacked a young body over time, how it was treated in the middle 19th century, and the effectiveness of those treatments.

Do you know the WHOLE story about the Louisiana Purchase? From the first Europeans and Native Americans to its purchase from France and first explorations? Some people thought it cost too much and was too much land, while others saw it as the future of the United States. Who was right? Did France even have the right to sell the Louisiana Territory to the US? How did the Louisiana Territory go from being a vast wilderness to the central states? How did things end up the way they are today?

This audiobook will introduce you to James Madison. Besides becoming the fourth president of the United States, he served in government for most of his life. You will meet him as he goes off to college, when he returns home to Montpelier, and when he decides to assist with the greatest achievement of his life, the writing of the US Constitution. James Madison was a man not to be forgotten. This audiobook will prove to you why.

Washington, D.C., 1861: As the United States teeters on the brink of civil war, Colonel Charles P. Rook organizes security in the nation’s capital and monitors the death threats pouring into the White House. He surrounds Abraham Lincoln with bodyguards, covers rooftops with sharpshooters, and investigates rumors of conspiracy fomented by secessionists. Yet amid the chaos and confusion, a mysterious killer slips into the teeming city.

A recent French biography begins, "Who doesn't know Nadar?" In France, that's a rhetorical question. Of all of the legendary figures who thrived in mid-19th-century Paris - a cohort that includes Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Gustave Courbet, and Alexandre Dumas - Nadar was perhaps the most innovative, the most restless, the most modern. The first great portrait photographer, a pioneering balloonist, the first person to take an aerial photograph, and the prime mover behind the first airmail service, Nadar was one of the original celebrity artist-entrepreneurs.

The Herbert Fuller, a three-masted sailing ship loaded with New England lumber, left Boston bound for Buenos Aires on July 8, 1896 with 12 people on board. Just before 2 a.m. on the sixth day at sea, the captain, his wife, and the second mate were slaughtered in their individual bunkrooms with the ship's axe, seven or eight blows apiece. Laura Nash was found with her thin nightgown pushed above her hips, her head and upper body smashed and deformed. Incredibly, no one saw or heard the killings...except the killer.

Scotland Yard. The name itself conjures up a mental picture of old-time detectives in trench coats snooping around a crime scene with a giant magnifying glass. Indeed, over the years, the Metropolitan Police Force in London has become an inspirational icon, and the setting of countless literary masterpieces, films, television shows, music, and other works of art.

On the morning of July 1, 1800, a surveyor and mapmaker named Cayetano Diaz opened the window of his study in Guatemala City to find a horrific sight: a pair of severed breasts. Offering a meticulously researched and evocative account of the quest to find the perpetrator and understand the motives behind such a brutal act, this volume pinpoints the sensational crime as a watershed moment in Guatemalan history that radically changed the nature of justice and the established social order.

Le 22 décembre 1894, un procès d'État condamne un capitaine juif, alsacien, innocent de toute charge, pour crime de "haute trahison" (en faveur de l'Allemagne). S'ouvre, deux ans plus tard, une crise majeure de la République. Mais l'engagement pour Dreyfus, la défense des droits de l'homme et du citoyen, la lutte contre l'antisémitisme et le nationalisme entraînent un sursaut civique de la société. Le 12 juillet 1906, un arrêt solennel de la Cour de cassation réhabilite l'officier.

What did 19th-century cities smell like? And how did odors matter in the formation of a modern environmental consciousness? Smell Detectives follows the 19th-century Americans who used their noses to make sense of the sanitary challenges caused by rapid urban and industrial growth.

Perhaps the most famous and most destructive eruption in modern history was the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. Even without the instantaneous forms of communication that are now available, the world watched in wonder for new updates about a tiny South Pacific island. And though few of them would ever go there, Krakatoa remained a source of fascination for the much of the world for the next 50 years.

To get a sense of the kind of prestige that Claude Monet's reputation has within the art world, one need only learn that his Le Bassin Aux Nympheás (1919) - from his series of paintings featuring water lilies - sold for the equivalent of more than $70 million. This is an incredibly staggering price, especially considering that early in his life, Monet had been so poor and debt-ridden that some of his paintings were taken from him by creditors.

People love mysteries, which is a good thing, since history is so replete with them. This is especially true among seafaring people, and of all the mysteries of the deep, few rise to the level of the Mary Celeste. In many ways it is a story more suited for an episode of The X-Files than it is for any history book. There is the unlucky ship that began her sailing career under a cloud of bad fortune and accident.

The requirements needed to be a peace officer in the Wild West were often determined only by the individual's skill with a gun, and their courage. At times, judgment was needed with only seconds to determine it, and that also meant that there was the odd occasion where justice and law never quite meant the same thing. The expression "justice without law" was never truer than in the formative years of the West.

The Underground Railroad was the passage to freedom for many slaves, but it was rife with dangers. There were dedicated conductors and safe houses, but also arduous nights in the mountains and days in threatening towns. For those who made it to Midnight (the code name given to Detroit), the Detroit River became a River Jordan and Canada became their land of Canaan - the Promised Land where they could live freely in black settlements under the protection of British law.