Showing titles in 19th Century

“May God forgive me for the order”, Confederate Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge remarked as he ordered young cadets from Virginia military institute into the battle lines at New Market, just days after calling them from their academic studies to assist in a crucial defense. Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley had seen years of fighting. In the spring of 1864, Union Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel prepared to lead a new invasion force into the Valley, operating on the far right flank of Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign. Breckinridge scrambled to organize the confederate defense.

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.

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.

In this fascinating and deeply researched book, Sharon Marcus challenges everything you thought you knew about our obsession with fame. Icons are not merely famous for being famous; the media alone cannot make or break stars; fans are not simply passive dupes. Instead, journalists, the public, and celebrities themselves all compete, passionately and expertly, to shape the stories we tell about celebrities and fans. The result: a high-stakes drama as endless as it is unpredictable.

Told at a cracking pace and based on many of the extensive letters Scott wrote from his death cell, Moonlite is set amid the violent and sexually repressed era of Australia in the second half of the 19th century. With a cast of remarkable characters, it weaves together the extraordinary lives of our bushrangers and the desperation of a young nation eager to remove the stains of its convict past. But most of all, Moonlite is a tragic love story.

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.

Although they are separated by more than 150 years, Nell finds herself drawn to the Victorian novelist by their shared experiences of unrequited love - Gaskell for an American critic she met in Rome, Nell for a soulful American screenwriter living in Paris. As Nell's romance founders and her passion for academia fails to materialize, she finds herself wondering if the indomitable Mrs. Gaskell might rescue her pursuit of love, family, and a writing career.

In May 2018, NASA called a press conference to announce the successful test-run of their tiny nuclear reactor KRUSTY (Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology). This revolutionary technology, which runs on heat alone, may have profound consequences for the future of mankind, enabling us to maintain permanent bases on the Moon, on Mars, and other planets, and eventually power a starship. On earth too it could have enormous benefits as a new way to generate power at a time when climate change is threatening our very existence.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir stands alongside Claude Monet at the very peak of Impressionist painting, and though neither of them can be credited with founding the movement (that honor likely goes to Edouard Manet or Edgar Degas), Renoir and Monet remain inextricably tied to the key characteristics of Impressionism: loose brushwork; outdoor painting; an emphasis on capturing natural light and shadow; and a focus on remaining in Paris and the surrounding countryside.

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.

In 1787, Lucia, the beautiful 16-year-old daughter of a prominent Venetian statesman, is married off to Alvise Mocenigo, scion of one of the most powerful Venetian families. But their life as a golden couple will be suddenly transformed when Venice falls to Bonaparte.

 German South West Africa: The History and Legacy of Germany’s Biggest African Colony chronicles the politics and conflicts that marked Germany’s efforts to colonize German South West Africa. You will learn about German South West Africa like never before. 

Situated about 25 miles off the Tanzanian coast, Zanzibar, with its sultans and spices, merchants and mosques, dhows and doorways of richly carved timber, has captured the imagination of travelers and writers for hundreds of years. It has long evoked a romantic mystique, calling up images of an island paradise in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. Its gleaming Muslim Swahili town, built of white coralline limestone, can trace approximately 1,000 years of maritime trading.

A pesar de sus paradójicas luminarias, la historia de México a veces es cruel con sus caudillos. Los arrincona, los hunde en empresas destinadas al fracaso, los arrumba en el olvido; prueba de ello es la mítica figura de Ireneo Paz, emblema de los liberales mexicanos, militar, poeta, crítico de su tiempo, novelista, editor vehemente y al final de sus días...solo un fantasma.

The British East India Company served as one of the key players in the formation of the British Empire. From its origins as a trading company struggling to keep up with its superior Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish competitors to its tenure as the ruling authority of the Indian subcontinent to its eventual hubristic downfall, the East India Company serves as a lens through which to explore the much larger economic and social forces that shaped the formation of a global British Empire.

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.

This "provocative study" looks at hundreds of autobiographies penned between 1760 and 1900 to offer an intimate firsthand account of how the Industrial Revolution was experienced by the working class (the New Yorker). The era didn't just bring about misery and poverty. On the contrary, Emma Griffin shows how it raised incomes, improved literacy, and offered exciting opportunities for political action. For many, this was a period of new, and much valued, sexual and cultural freedom.

Although he is unquestionably one of the most studied leaders of the 19th century, Simón Bolívar remains today as enigmatic as he was two centuries ago, when his vision and presence largely inspired the overthrow of the Spanish Empire in the New World.

In her book Victory for the Vote, women's history expert Doris Weatherford offers an engaging and detailed narrative history of women's seven-decade fight for the vote, and the continuing current-day struggle for human rights and equality.

Soldiers called it one of the “waste places of nature” and “a region of gloom” - the wilderness of Virginia, 70 square miles of dense second-growth forest known as “the dark, close wood”. Here, in the spring of 1864, the Civil War escalated to a new level of horror. Ulysses S. Grant, commanding all Federal armies, opened the campaign with a vow to never turn back. Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, moved into the wilderness to block Grant’s advance. Immovable object intercepted irresistible force - and the wilderness burst into flame.