A Concise Companion to History
Editor: Ulinka Rublack
Edition: First
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Pages: 480
Price: £25.00
ISBN 9780199291212
As old certainties in the discipline prove less secure, this substantial new work will, believe its publishers, influence the writing of history for years to come, and be judged to match the importance of key works by David Cannadine and E.H. Carr. Edited by a renowned University of Cambridge scholar of early modern history, A Concise Companion to History presents 16 wide-ranging essays by leading US and UK scholars. These consider key themes in current historical scholarship, probing the interconnections of different civilisations and drawing on both comparative and world history in thinking about the future of the discipline.
Western Civilizations: Their History and their Culture
Authors: Judith Coffin, Robert Stacey, Joshua Cole and Carol Symes
Edition: Seventeenth revised
Publisher: W.W. Norton
Pages: 1,072
Price: £80.00
ISBN 9780393934816
This is the latest edition of one of the best-selling US-authored textbooks for survey and introductory courses in Western history, presented here in a single-volume format. Updated features include improved pedagogical elements, new primary source features, maps with guiding questions, enhanced photo captions and illustrations. The book aims to offer a balance of classic topics with wider coverage including the Mediterranean world, Islam and Byzantium, and hybrid cultures arising from Western encounters in Asia, Africa and the Americas after 1492.
Russia in the Twentieth Century: The Quest for Stability
Author: David R. Marples
Edition: First
Publisher: Pearson Education
Pages: 392
Price: £19.99
ISBN 97814082282
University of Alberta academic Marples looks to offer a balanced overview of Russia (and the Soviet Union) during its turbulent 20th century. He argues that its history is of crucial importance in analysing the decline of communism, and understanding why contemporary Russia has retained many of the practices and memories of the Soviet period.
Britain Since 1707
Authors: Callum G. Brown and W. Hamish Fraser
Edition: First
Publisher: Pearson Education
Pages: 704
Price: £22.99
ISBN 9780582894150
In the first single-volume book to cover the complex history of Great Britain from its inception until 2007, the UK-based authors aim to synthesise political, economic, social and cultural history via a balanced account of the nation throughout a 300-year period. Key developments examined include the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the Empire, the two world wars, the growth of democracy and gender change, along with a look at the distinctive experiences of different groups. It includes original documents and sources, timelines and tables, historical sources and further reading.
Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain
Author: Peter Fryer
Edition: Second
Publisher: Pluto
Pages: 648
Price: £65.00 and £19.99
ISBN 9780745330730 and 0723
Staying Power, the work of the late socialist historian and journalist Fryer, is seen by many as the definitive history of black people in Britain, an epic story that begins with the Roman Conquest. Fryer's comprehensive account reveals how Africans, Asians and their descendants, long hidden from history, influenced and shaped events in Britain over a period of 2,000 years. In a new edition published after Fryer's death, a foreword by Paul Gilroy discusses the genesis of the book and its continuing significance in black history today.
Society in Early Modern England: The Vernacular Origins of Some Powerful Ideas
Author: Philip Withington
Edition: First
Publisher: Polity
Pages: 248
Price: £55.00 and £16.99
ISBN 9780745641294 and 1300
Withington reflects on the implications of the designation "early modern" for present-day debates about modernity and society, in the process tracing the little-known genealogy of the phrase to the Victorian era and unpicking the connections between linguistic and social change. The period considered here was a time of intense social and political ferment, and the University of Cambridge academic's analysis aims to rigorously chart key concepts and discourses.
The Palgrave Atlas of Byzantine History
Author: John Haldon
Edition: First
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Pages: 200
Price: £16.99
ISBN 9780230243644
Aiming to offer a unique and complete mapping of the history of the Byzantine Empire, this text features more than 100 specially designed maps illustrating key aspects of the political, economic and social history of a medieval empire that bridged the Christian and Islamic worlds from the late Roman period into the late Middle Ages. Haldon is professor of Byzantine history at Princeton University and his other works include Byzantium: A History (2000).
The Viking Age: A Reader
Editors: Angus A. Somerville and R. Andrew McDonald
Edition: First
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Pages: 503
Price: £21.99
ISBN 9781442601482
The editors aim to provide a comprehensive and user-friendly reader covering the development of the Viking age from early raids to the rise and fall of Viking empires. The diversity of this world is echoed in a variety of primary documents including chroniclers recording European reactions to onslaught, an Arab diplomat recalling an encounter in Russia, poetry-lauding warriors and rulers of the age, and saga literature evoking the lives of Norsemen and women. The volume features new translations of all Norse material and introductions contextualise the translations.
A History of the Cuban Revolution
Author: Aviva Chomsky
Edition: First
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Pages: 224
Price: £45.00 and £13.99
ISBN 9781405187749 and 7732
US historian Chomsky looks to provide a concise socio-historical account of Cuba's 1959 revolution, an event still the subject of debate and bitter divisions half a century later. An overview of the political and economic events is combined with a look at its social impact through an examination of the lives of ordinary people. Both US and Cuban perspectives are considered and the illusions of stereotypical views of the country (both as a dreary Stalinist prison and a carefree Caribbean nation) are unpicked.
The Dangerous Trade: Spies, Spying and Spymasters
Authors: Michael J. Levin, Alan Marshall, Steve Murdoch, Paolo Preto, Christopher Storrs and Daniel Szechi
Edition: First
Publisher: Dundee University Press
Pages: 280
Price: £25.00
ISBN 9781845860608
Leading historians based in Britain, Italy and the US offer a reader-friendly but rigorous study of espionage and its impact. Fascinating tales of the methods, motivations and political impact of the work of operatives in 16th-century Venice, 17th-century Sweden and 18th-century France are considered.
Tasmania: Women, History, Books and Places
Author: Susanna Hoe
Edition: First
Publisher: Holo Books
Pages: 440
Price: £19.99
ISBN 9780954405663
Historian and author Hoe - with novels and scholarly works on Papua New Guinea, Crete, Madeira, Hong Kong and China to her credit - here offers the fruit of detailed research on the history of women in the Australian island state of Tasmania. Via literature, art and architecture, letters, contemporary media and oral history, she explores accounts of people including the first white women to visit Van Diemen's Land, colonial notables including Lady Franklin, Aboriginal women including Ouray-Ouray and Trukanini (who was erroneously thought to be "the last Tasmanian" when she died in 1876) and 20th-century campaigners for Aboriginal and environmental causes.
The Gesta Tancredi of Ralph of Caen: A History of the Normans on the First Crusade
Translators: Bernard S. Bachrach and David S. Bachrach
Edition: First
Publisher: Ashgate
Pages: 196
Price: £17.99
ISBN 9781409400325
The first translation into modern English of an important but often-neglected narrative account of the First Crusade and its aftermath, which recounts the experiences of Ralph, a Norman scholar and student of Arnulf, who would become the patriarch of Jerusalem. The work has a strongly Norman point of view and offers details found in no other source, and thus is a corrective to the strong northern focus of most of the other narrative sources for the First Crusade.
The Emergence of Britain's Global Naval Supremacy: The War of 1739-1748
Author: Richard Harding
Edition: First
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Pages: 392
Price: £65.00
ISBN 9781843835806
Harding, a University of Westminster historian, considers the British involvement in the war of 1739-48, which has long been neglected or dismissed as inconclusive. He takes issue with received wisdom in probing its contribution to a critical development during the 18th century - the emergence of Britain as a global naval power. The war posed particular challenges for British politicians, statesmen and servicemen, and the decisions they took prepared the nation for the decisive Anglo-French encounter in the Seven Years War.
A Global History of History
Author: Daniel Woolf
Edition: First
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Pages: 490
Price: £60.00 and £22.99
ISBN 9780521875752 and 699082
Woolf, the principal and vice-chancellor of Queen's University in Canada, aims to provide a definitive guide to human attempts to recover and understand the past. This is a study of the field itself, and an introduction to the ever-changing nature of history, the tensions between the differing natures of written, pictorial and oral accounts, and the variety of approaches that have been dominant in various areas of the world. Numerous textual extracts and illustrations in every chapter capture the historical cultures of past civilisations.
The Spanish Republic and Civil War
Author: Julian Casanova
Edition: First
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Pages: 370
Price: £60.00 and £18.99
ISBN 9780521493888 and 737807
An English-language account by one of Spain's leading historians of a bloody war that divided a nation as long-standing tensions turned to conflict. In considering a still-controversial period of European history, this book explores the role played by international instability as the country slid within five years from the elation of revolution against the monarchy into the grip of a powerful fascist regime.
Western Civilization: A Brief History
Author: Marvin Perry
Edition: Seventh revised international
Publisher: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning
Pages: 592
Price: £37.99
ISBN 9780495901310
An abridgement of the acclaimed and long-favoured survey-course textbook Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics and Society, this concise version sets out an overview of political and intellectual history from the classical period onwards.
Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past
Author: Paul A. Cohen
Edition: First revised
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Pages: 296
Price: £58.50 and £19.00
ISBN 9780231151924 and 1931
In a critique of traditional US scholarship on China, Cohen draws on the insights of his 50-year career as a historian of the country in a bid to rediscover the field from a China-centred perspective in which historians understand Chinese history on its own terms, paying close attention to Chinese historical trajectories and Chinese perceptions of their problems.
Recast All under Heaven: Revolution, War, Diplomacy, and Frontier China in the 20th Century
Author: Xiaoyuan Liu
Edition: First
Publisher: Continuum
Pages: 288
Price: £65.00 and £19.99
ISBN 9781441162205 and 134899
A history of the Chinese frontiers during the 20th century that explores the changing ruling ideology of the Chinese state from empire to nation. Combining the 20th-century history of all China's frontiers (Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet), the book applies the interpretative themes of "frontier" and "ethnicity" to the modern transformation of the nation. It is based on published data as well as archival information that has only recently become available.
Crisis of Empire: Britain and America in the Eighteenth Century
Author: Jeremy Black
Edition: First
Publisher: Continuum
Pages: 224
Price: £30.00 and £12.99
ISBN 9781847252432 and 1441104458
Acclaimed and prolific historian Black seeks to provide a comprehensive account of the challenging period that saw these two allies dominate the world's diplomacy through economic and military power. The early tensions that led to the later rise of the US and the eventual end of the British Empire are examined in depth.
Roman Passions: A History of Pleasure in Imperial Rome
Author: Ray Laurence
Edition: First
Publisher: Continuum
Pages: 256
Price: £30.00 and £12.99
ISBN 9781847250322 and 1441134851
What does an empire do when it has conquered the known world? Devote itself to the pursuit of sex, art and wine, contends this book. Laurence provides a detailed exposition of the world of late Roman culture, its vices and virtues, and touches on parallels visible in the West today.
The Russia Reader: History, Culture, Politics
Editors: Adele Barker and Bruce Grant
Edition: First
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages: 784
Price: £77.00 and £20.99
ISBN 9780822346562 and 46487
A wide-ranging introduction to the history, politics and culture of a fallen superpower and the world's largest country. This book charts Russia's progress via the earliest written accounts through to a novelist's depiction of the first decade of the third millennium in Siberia. Conveying everyday life as well as major historical events, this reader presents the voices of rulers and revolutionaries, peasants, soldiers, artists, émigrés, journalists and scholars via essays, short stories, letters, songs, jokes, folk tales, poetry, memoirs and household manuals. Most of the selections are by Russians; 30 are translated into English for the first time.
Colonial Latin America
Authors: Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson
Edition: Seventh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Pages: 446
Price: £32.50
ISBN 9780195386059
Revised and updated, Colonial Latin America presents an exposition of the New World colonies of a major European power, covering the region from initial European contact up until the revolutionary 20th century. The latest edition offers reorganised coverage of the imperial crisis and independence era, new discussion of the Haitian revolution and expanded consideration of the African influence on early colonial development.
Hobsbawm: History and Politics
Author: Gregory Elliott
Edition: First
Publisher: Pluto
Pages: 216
Price: £12.99
ISBN 9780745328447
Arguably the most important chronicler of the modern age, Eric Hobsbawm's studies have informed both scholars and the general public, and his writings on Labour and socialism have stirred debate. In this revealing account, the first full-length critical study of Hobsbawm's scholarly career, Elliott aims to see his thought in the context of a crisis of confidence on the Left after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
