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In recent years Public History the engagement with history now has grown in Britain. Visits to heritage sites, museums and galleries are packed with enthusiasts. In this collection, the contributors write about history as part of a living present which is re-created, contested and challenged. The starting points are places, people and images the writers encounter in their everyday lives. They have a commitment to those whose lives are still excluded from historical practice and their essays blur the boundaries between history, art, culture and everyday life.
The Discovery of Islands consists of a series of linked essays in British history, written by one of the world's leading historians of political thought and published over the past three decades. Its purpose is to present British history as that of several nations interacting with - and sometimes seceding from - an imperial state. The commentary presents this history as that of an archipelago, expanding across oceans to the Antipodes. Both New Zealand history and the author's New Zealand heritage inform this vision, presenting British history as oceanic and global, complementing (and occasionally criticising) the presentation of that history as European. Professor Pocock's interpretation of British history has been hugely influential in recent years, making The Discovery of Islands a resource of immense value for historians of Britain and the world.
What are the 50 key events you need to understand to grasp British history? If you could choose the 50 things that define British history, events of significance not only in themselves, but in their importance to wider themes running through the country's past, what would they be? Hugh Williams has made that selection, and the result is a fascinating overview of Britain's past. He refines British history into a series of key themes that represent a crucial strand in the nation's history, and pinpoints the seminal events within those strands—Roots: from the Roman invasion to Britain's entry into the Common Market; Fight: from the Battle of Agincourt to the Falklands War; The Pursuit of Liberty: from the Magna Carta through the Glorious Revolution to the foundation of the NHS; Home and Abroad: from Sir Francis Drake and Clive of India to the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush; and All Change: from Chaucer and the English language to the invention of the web. With great clarity, simplicity, and a zest for the marvelous stories that underpin many of these events, Hugh Williams explains the linkage between each one and its importance in the progress of British history as a whole. Along the way, he has some fascinating tales to tell, making this a highly enjoyable read as well as a perceptive insight into the nation's past, and vital for anyone who wants quickly and enjoyably to grasp the essential facts about Britain's history.
Shedding new light on British expansion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this collection of essays examines how the first British Empire was received and shaped by its subject peoples in Scotland, Ireland, North America, and the Caribbean. An introduction surveys British imperial historiography and provides a context for the volume as a whole. The essays focus on specific ethnic groups -- Native Americans, African-Americans, Scotch-Irish, and Dutch and Germans -- and their relations with the British, as well as on the effects of British expansion in particular regions -- Ireland, Scotland, Canada, and the West Indies. A conclusion assesses the impact of the North American colonies on British society and politics. Taken together, these essays represent a new kind of imperial history -- one that portrays imperial expansion as a dynamic process in which the oulying areas, not only the English center, played an important role in the development and character of the Empire. The collection interpets imperial history broadly, examining it from the perspective of common folk as well as elites and discussing the clash of cultures in addition to political disputes. Finally, by examining shifting and multiple frontiers and by drawing parallels between outlying provinces, these essays move us closer to a truly integrated story that links the diverse ethnic experiences of the first British Empire. The contributors are Bernard Bailyn, Philip D. Morgan, Nicholas Canny, Eric Richards, James H. Merrell, A. G. Roeber, Maldwyn A. Jones, Michael Craton, J. M. Bumsted, and Jacob M. Price.
This book, in two volumes, attempts to explain the technology developments that evolved in the period from 1900 at Kitty Hawk through the ensuing seventy-five years leading to the development of the United States F-16 Multinational Weapon System in the mid-1970s. By 2017, 4,550 F-16s, all with the first all-electric, fly-by-wire flight control system have been manufactured for use by twenty-six countries. Awestricken birds undoubtedly ask themselves, How do humans do that? as an F-16 streaks by at over two hundred times the airspeed of the bird. This book strives to provide the how-and-why answer to that fascinating story.
It created a sensation when it appeared in 1903 and remains a striking insider’s narrative of the American steel industry in the late nineteenth century. Details the historic confrontation between Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, and the business dealings leading up to the creation of U.S. Steel in 1900.
This book is a work of synthesis, which argues that an all-encompassing blueprint governs the evolution of all parts of our universe. In its first half, it discerns interdisciplinary symmetry in the early development of history and six other disciplines. It then uses this discovery to formulate testable predictions about the form and content of later history. In its second half, the book attempts to verify these intimations of our more recent past and to envision the human future that lies ahead. Contents INTRODUCTION.................................................................. 13 Part I EARLY HISTORY 1. PERIOD 0 THE HOMINOIDS......................................... 19 2. PERIOD 1 THE PALEOLITHIC ECONOMY.................... 43 3. PERIOD 1 THE PALEOLITHIC SUPERSTRUCTURE...... 64 4. A METAPHORICAL SYNOPSIS OF THE PALEOLITHIC PERIOD......................................... 72 5. PERIOD 2 THE NEOLITHIC ECONOMY......................... 84 6. PERIOD 2 THE NEOLITHIC SUPERSTRUCTURE........... 96 7. A METAPHORICAL SYNOPSIS OF THE NEOLITHIC PERIOD............................................ 102 8. PERIOD 3 THE BRONZE AGE SUPERSTRUCTURE...... 110 9. PERIOD 3 THE BRONZE AGE ECONOMY.................... 119 10. A METAPHORICAL SYNOPSIS OF THE BRONZE AGE.. 134 Part II INTERDISCIPLINARY DEVELOPMENT SYMMETRY Early Supernatural Development 11. SUPERNATURAL PERIOD 1 THE TOTEM BASE........ 149 12. SUPERNATURAL PERIOD 1 THE TOTEM SUPERSTRUCTURE................................. 163 13. A METAPHORICAL SYNOPSIS OF THE TOTEM PERIOD.................................................. 168 14. SUPERNATURAL PERIOD 2 THE MOTHER GODDESS BASE................................... 172 15. SUPERNATURAL PERIOD 2 THE MOT
