Showing titles in 19th Century

The year is 1888, and Louis Le Prince is finally testing his “taker” or “receiver” device for his family on the front lawn. The device is meant to capture 10 to 12 images per second on film, creating a reproduction of reality that can be replayed as many times as desired. In an otherwise separate and detached world, occurrences from one end of the globe could now be viewable with only a few days delay on the other side of the world. No human experience—from the most mundane to the most momentous—would need to be lost to history.

The modern history of Africa was, until very recently, written on behalf of the indigenous races by the white man, who had forcefully entered the continent during a particularly hubristic and dynamic phase of European history. In 1884, Prince Otto von Bismark, the German chancellor, brought the plenipotentiaries of all major powers of Europe together, to deal with Africa's colonization in such a manner as to avoid provocation of war.

Few naval battles in American history have left a more enduring impression on America's national consciousness than the Battle of Lake Erie, September 10, 1813. Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry's battle flag emblazoned with the message "Don t Give Up the Ship", now enshrined at the U.S. Naval Academy, has become a naval maxim. His succinct after-action report, "We have met the enemy and they are ours", constitutes one of the more memorable battle summaries in American history.

Unruhige Jahre sind es, die am Beginn der modernen deutschen Geschichte stehen selbst wenn die Unruhe zunächst von außen kommt. Die Französische Revolution, dann Napoleon mit seinen Feldzügen verändern die europäische und auch die deutsche Landkarte.

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.

Jules Verne and the Invention of the Future has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

The War of 1812 is often forgotten when we think about the history of the United States. Yet, the effects of what seems a minor and insignificant conflict are far-reaching, even today. The world settled into the roles it would play out for decades, and the boundaries of the United States and Canada would be set for the next two hundred years. Unlikely heroes would rise, leading to eventual power, while Native Americans play out their own struggle on a backdrop of bloodshed and intrigue.

Canadians take pride in being on the “good side” of the American Civil War, serving as a haven for 30,000 escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad. But dwelling in history's shadow is the much darker role Canada played in supporting the slave South and in fomenting the many plots against Lincoln. The North Star weaves together the different strands of several Canadians and a handful of Confederate agents in Canada as they all made their separate, fateful journeys into history.

Combining impeccable scholarship and literary elegance, David Wetzel depicts the drama of machinations and passions that exploded in a war that forever changed the face of European history.

This panoramic book tells the story of how revolutionary ideas from the Enlightenment about freedom, equality, evolution, and democracy have reverberated through modern history and shaped the world as we know it today.

Russell Martin, author of Beethoven's Hair, and his wife, Lydia Nibley, tell the story of how a lock of Ludwig von Beethoven's hair, clipped from the composer's head on his deathbed in Germany in 1827, ended up in Nazi-occupied Denmark in 1943 and was later sold at auction in London in 1994. Learn about this incredible journey through history and the mysteries revealed about Beethoven's deafness and death. Correspondence, research, and forensics further inform this fascinating story.

The discovery of Robert E. Lee's Special Orders No. 191 outside of Frederick, Maryland, on September 13, 1862, is one of the most hotly disputed events of the American Civil War. For more than 150 years, historians have debated if George McClellan, commander of the Union Army of the Potomac, dawdled after receiving a copy of the orders before advancing to challenge Lee's forces. Authors Gene Thorp and Alexander Rossino document in exhaustive fashion how "Little Mac" in fact moved with uncharacteristic energy to counter the Confederate threat and take advantage of Lee's divided forces.

"Ambition is like the balloonist. To some extent, the rise is nice and he does enjoy a splendid view and a vast landscape. But when he rises more, vertigo occurs, the air becomes thin and the risk of a big fall increases." With this parable, the Austrian Archduke Maximilian of Hapsburg inadvertently predicted the destiny to which he would bravely ride, despite the warnings and the sweet talkers. In any case, he followed his heart's mandate. And Charlotte, the princess, was "one of the most cultured and beautiful" in Europe.

Rifleman Harris was a soldier in the elite 95th Rifles, one of Britains most prestigous infantry units during the Napoleonic wars. In this memoir, Harris relates his experiences in Denmark, the Peninsular, and at Walcheren. This is no history of grand plans and movements controlled by the lofty generals. Rather this relates the tale of a front line soldier who's concerns run much more with keeping shoes on his feet, a shirt on his back and, most importantly, food in his belly. Among other details, this book relates the horrors of the retreat to Corruna and the even more disasterous Walcheren expedition where an entire army was struck down by pestilence.

Until now there has not been a serious study of the rifle-armed regiments of the British Army that earned such renown in the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns. Compiled by a former rifleman, Ray Cusick, who has written extensively on the subject, Wellington's Rifles examines the new rifle regiments, how they came about, their development and their actions.

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.

Long before his finest hour as Britain's wartime leader, Winston Churchill emerged on the world stage as a brazen foreign correspondent, covering wars of empire in Cuba, India, the Sudan, and South Africa. In those far-flung corners of the world, reporting from the front lines between 1895 and 1900, Churchill mastered his celebrated command of language and formed strong opinions about war.

Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) was an American economist and sociologist. His most famous work, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (1899), is a treatise on economics and a social critique of consumption and of consumerism, based on the social stratification of people and the division of labor. This work is in the tradition of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and is rightly considered a classic of economic theory and social history.

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.

Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer leads his 7th Cavalry into the Valley of the Little Big Horn, and into eternity in this truly spectacular audio dramatization of the events that took place on June 25th, 1876. It was a horrific battle, which saw no true victors. Custer's command lost their lives. The Plains Indians lost their way of life. With an exciting music score (using many themes from the actual 7th Cavalry song book), and thousands of sound effects, you will be right in the middle of the famous last stand on the Little Big Horn.