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In Georgian London: Into the Streets, Lucy Inglis takes readers on a tour of London's most formative age - the age of love, sex, intellect, art, great ambition and fantastic ruin. You can travel back to the Georgian years, a time that changed expectations of what life could be. You can peek into the gilded drawing rooms of the aristocracy, walk down the quiet avenues of the new middle class, and crouch in the damp doorways of the poor. But watch your wallet - tourists make perfect prey for the t...

Focusing on the visual arts and written texts, this book explores the nature of femininity and masculinity in 18th-century Britain and France. The activities and collective conditions of women as producers of art and culture are investigated, together with analysis of representation and the ways in which it might be gendered. This illustrated book should make an important contribution to debates on representation, constructions of sexuality and women as producers. Topics covered include: the art...

This work explores the British country house during the period 1700-1830 and looks at the lives of both the noblemen and the servants who inhabited them. It provides insight into many different areas: the role and rank of family and sevants, furniture, landscape, architecture, painting, scultpture, style, food and entertainment are all discussed and allow him to invoke a sense of 18th-century life as it was experienced by the inhabitants of these homes. Reference is made to the whole of the Brit...

She was the daughter of an alcoholic Isle of Wight smuggler. Much of her childhood was spent in the island's workhouse. Yet Sophie Dawes threw off the shackles of her downbeat formative years to become one of the most talked-about personalities in post-revolutionary France. It was the ultimate rags to riches story which would see her become the mistress of the fabulously wealthy French aristocrat Louis Henri de Bourbon, destined to be the last Prince of Conde. Her total subjugation of the agei...

Based on a major Radio 4 series, this is an account of British history from the Roman invasion to the death of Queen Victoria. It focuses on the significant events and personalities that shaped Britain over nearly 2000 years, tracing its emergence from the Dark Ages which followed the Romans' departure, through the great flowering of culture in medieval times and the gradual evolution of the modern state, to the making of an empire and the huge changes brought about by the industrial revolution.

During 1779, armies under the command of American General George Washington and British General Sir William Clinton were locked in a strategic stalemate. Washington's Continental forces were deployed around Middlebrook, in northern New Jersey, while Clinton's forces defended New York. The entry of the French into the war as American allies had shifted the strategic initiative and caused the British government to order Clinton to dispatch significant forces to the West Indies and southern colonie...

'Hitchings is extremely good at unravelling Johnson's most bullish assertions . . . lucid and empathetic, scholarly but lively. A model Johnsonian, in fact.' The TimesThe World in Thirty-Eight Chapters or Dr Johnson's Guide to Life is a source of profound good sense about what it means to teach, read, write and travel. More than that, though, Henry Hitchings continually translates Samuel Johnson's experience of poverty, scorn, pain and madness into a rich understanding of how to be.Samuel Johnso...

_Outlander_ has brought the story of the 1745 Jacobite uprising to the popular imagination, but who were the Jacobites, really? Explore this pivotal moment in Scottish history, visiting some of the key locations from Jamie and Claire's travels. Discover what clan life was really like, read about medicine in the 1700s and find out whether the red coats were really as bad as Jack Randall. Meet Bonnie Prince Charlie and explore how he managed to inspire an uprising from France and then storm Englan...

The history of the Freemasons has often been shrouded in mystery and suspicion. Since 1717, with the establishment of the Grand Lodge in London, the Freemasons have been a power within the nation, withstanding public disapproval and attacks, from the Catholic Church among others. Throughout the last three hundred years, the Freemasons have been influential in some of the most important turning points in world history. Jasper Ridley explores the role of the society in both the American and French...

There have been few books about Grey's glorious (but ultimately ill-fated) West Indies campaign in the early years of the long and terrible wars of 1793-1815, yet five of the subalterns in Grey's expeditionary force went on to command divisions in Wellington's Peninsula army; another two commanded the Iron Duke's Royal Artillery; and one (Richard Fletcher) - famously - the Royal Engineers. The tactics used by Sir Charles Grey were as far removed as can be imagined from the traditional image of...

Contrary to popular belief, the American Revolutionary War was not a limited and restrained struggle for political self-determination. From the onset of hostilities, British authorities viewed their American foes as traitors to be punished, and British abuse of American prisoners, both tacitly condoned and at times officially sanctioned, proliferated. Meanwhile, more than seventeen thousand British and allied soldiers fell into American hands during the Revolution. For a fledgling nation that co...

The first full review of the mass murder by crew members on the slave ship Zong and the lasting repercussions of this horrifying event On November 29, 1781, Captain Collingwood of the British ship Zong commanded his crew to throw overboard one-third of his cargo: a shipment of Africans bound for slavery in America. The captain believed his ship was off course, and he feared there was not enough drinking water to last until landfall. This book is the first to examine in detail the deplorable ki...

Britain was totally unprepared for war with France in 1793 and relied on German auxiliaries to supplement her own meagre resources to pursue her strategy in the Low Countries and beyond. The contingents were drawn from the smaller German states, whose armies still followed the rigid linear tactics of Frederick the Great. They therefore had to adapt to deal with the new threat posed by the mass French armies, with a greater emphasis on light troops and more flexible tactics. Although the German...

Great Britain's Place in the World, 1707-1997 is a readable and thorough account of modern British and international history, ideal for students and teachers in universities and community colleges. The book traces the interlinking of the Industrial Revolution, British military prowess, and the rise of the British Empire, alongside the degradation of global power, traced particularly from the loss of Britain's American colonies. Britain's role in shaping modern history is addressed through the un...

Employing a rigorous methodological approach and analysing a vast body of sources from towns and regions in Italy, France and England over 300 years, this book hints at the extent of ‘routine’ infanticide of newborns by married parents in early modern Europe, ignored by contemporary tribunals. Death Control in the West 1500–1800 examines baptismal registers and ecclesiastical censuses across a score of communities in Catholic and Protestant Europe. Married women had little reason to hide their...

HMS Victory is probably the best-known historic ship in the world. A symbol of the Royal Navy's achievements during the great age of sail, she is based in Portsmouth and seen by tens of thousands of visitors each year.As is the case for many historic ships, however, there is a surprising shortage of informative and well illustrated guides, for reference during a visit or for research by enthusiasts - ship modellers, naval buffs, historians or students. This new series redresses the gap. Written...