These titles, selected from the Yale University Press 2013 History Catalogue, offer in depth retrospectives of extraordinary events, people and places from across history. The collection of topics range from the tumultuous history of imperialism in the Middle East to the quintessentially British biography of Nelson.
Wellington V.1: The Path to Victory 1769 – 1814 by Rory Muir
Rory Muir’s masterly new biography, the first of a two volume set, is the result of thirty years research into the Duke of Wellington and his times. The author brings Wellington into much sharper focus than ever before, critically examining every aspect of his life from his unhappy childhood, his baptism into British and Irish politics and his remarkable successes in India, to the setbacks and triumphs of the Peninsular War. This is the first biography to address the significance of Wellington’s political connections and the way they both helped and hindered his campaigns. The work also gives fresh insight into Wellington’s character: his many strengths and the flaws that together made him a complex and interesting man as well as a great soldier.
An accompanying commentary by Rory Muir is free to download from www.lifeofwellington.co.uk (coming soon)
The Anglo Saxon World by Nicholas Higham & Martin Ryan
The Anglo-Saxon period, stretching from the fifth to the late eleventh century, begins with the Roman retreat from the Western world and ends with the Norman takeover of England. Between these epochal events, many of the contours and patterns of English life that would endure for the next millennium were shaped. In this authoritative work, Nicholas. Higham and Martin Ryan reexamine Anglo-Saxon England in the light of new research in disciplines as wide-ranging as historical genetics, paleobotany, archaeology, literary studies, art history, and numismatics. The result is the definitive introduction to the Anglo-Saxon world, enhanced with a rich array of photographs, maps, genealogies, and other illustrations.
Isaac and Isaiah: The Covert Punishment of a Cold-War Heretic by David Caute
Rancorous and highly public disagreements between Isaiah Berlin and Isaac Deutscher escalated to the point of cruel betrayal in the mid-1960s, yet surprisingly the details of the episode have escaped historians’ scrutiny. In this gripping account of the ideological clash between two of the most influential scholars of Cold War politics, David Caute uncovers a hidden story of passionate beliefs, unresolved antagonism, and the high cost of reprisal to both victim and perpetrator. Though Deutscher (1907-1967) and Berlin (1909-1997) had much in common, Berlin became one of the presiding voices of Anglo-American liberalism, while Deutscher remained faithful to his Leninist heritage, resolutely defending Soviet conduct despite his rejection of Stalin’s tyranny.
Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World by Leo Damrosch
Jonathan Swift is best remembered today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, the satiric fantasy that quickly became a classic and has remained in print for nearly three centuries. Yet Swift also wrote many other influential works, was a major political and religious figure in his time, and became a national hero, beloved for his fierce protest against English exploitation of his native Ireland. What is really known today about the enigmatic man behind these accomplishments? Can the facts of his life be separated from the fictions?
Coming soon.
Ham House: 400 Years of Collecting and Patronage edited by Christopher Rowell
Built in 1610 during the reign of James I and remodeled in 1637-9 by the future first Earl of Dysart, ‘Ham House’ and its gardens have endured through centuries of English history while remaining representative of the styles and culture of the original inhabitants. It is one of the few places where Caroline decor – as developed by British architect Inigo Jones and familiar to Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck – can still be appreciated. To mark the 400th anniversary of one of the most famous houses in Europe, eighteen internationally recognized scholars join National Trust curators in documenting the history of Ham House and its collections. The new discoveries, reattributions, and revelations of the contributors are accompanied
by specially commissioned photography of the house and its contents.
Northern Ireland: The Reluctant Peace by Feargal Cochrane
In this thoughtful and engaging book, Feargal Cochrane looks at Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’ from the late 1960s to the present day. He explains why, a decade and a half after the peace process ended in political agreement in 1998, sectarian attitudes and violence continue to plague Northern Ireland today. Former members of the IRA now sit alongside their unionist adversaries in the Northern Ireland Assembly, but the region’s attitudes have been slow to change and recent years have even seen an upsurge in violence on both sides. In this book, Cochrane, who grew up a Catholic in Belfast in the ’70s and ’80s, explores how divisions between Catholics and Protestants became so entrenched, and reviews the thirty years of political violence in Northern Ireland – which killed over 3,500 people – leading up to the peace agreement.
Islamic Imperalism: A History by Efraim Karsh
From the first Arab-Islamic Empire of the mid-seventh century to the Ottomans, the last great Muslim empire, the story of the Middle East has been the story of the rise and fall of universal empires and, no less important, of imperialist dreams. So argues Efraim Karsh in this highly provocative book. Rejecting the conventional Western interpretation of Middle Eastern history as an offshoot of global power politics, Karsh contends that the region’s experience is the culmination of long-existing indigenous trends, passions and patterns of behaviour, and that foremost among these is Islam’s millenarian imperial tradition. The author explores the history of Islam’s imperialism and the persistence of the Ottoman imperialist dream that outlasted World War I to haunt Islamic and Middle Eastern politics
to the present day.
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