Black and British

Black and British
Author: David Olusoga
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages: 809
Release: 2016-11-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1447299744

'[A] comprehensive and important history of black Britain . . . Written with a wonderful clarity of style and with great force and passion.' – Kwasi Kwarteng, Sunday Times In this vital re-examination of a shared history, historian and broadcaster David Olusoga tells the rich and revealing story of the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean. This edition, fully revised and updated, features a new chapter encompassing the Windrush scandal and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, events which put black British history at the centre of urgent national debate. Black and British is vivid confirmation that black history can no longer be kept separate and marginalised. It is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation and it belongs to us all. Drawing on new genealogical research, original records, and expert testimony, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination, Elizabethan ‘blackamoors’ and the global slave-trading empire. It shows that the great industrial boom of the nineteenth century was built on American slavery, and that black Britons fought at Trafalgar and in the trenches of both World Wars. Black British history is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation. It is not a singular history, but one that belongs to us all. Unflinching, confronting taboos, and revealing hitherto unknown scandals, Olusoga describes how the lives of black and white Britons have been entwined for centuries. Winner of the 2017 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize. Winner of the Longman History Today Trustees’ Award. A Waterstones History Book of the Year. Longlisted for the Orwell Prize. Shortlisted for the inaugural Jhalak Prize.

The Macmillan Birder's Guide to European and Middle Eastern Birds

The Macmillan Birder's Guide to European and Middle Eastern Birds
Author: Hadoram Shirihai
Publisher: Trans-Atlantic Publications
Total Pages: 264
Release: 1996
Genre: Birds
ISBN:

Identifying confusion species - those birds that have strong similarities - can be remarkably difficult. The first Macmillan Field Guide to Bird Identification broke new ground by grouping together birds that are hard to tell apart and pointing out the differences. In Birding magazine it was described as the standard for all future bird books. This eagerly awaited new guide takes the same acclaimed approach, this time helping readers identify the European and Middle Eastern species that regularly visit Britain. The clearly written text is accompanied by 80 plates of exquisite illustrations and hand-written captions. Species covered include: petrels, herons, eagles, falcons, sandplovers, Armenian gulls, larks, warblers, redpolls and buntings.

Supermac

Supermac
Author: D R Thorpe
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 916
Release: 2010-09-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1409059324

Great-grandson of a crofter and son-in-law of a Duke, Harold Macmillan (1894-1986) was both complex as a person and influential as a politican. Marked by terrible experiences in the trenches in the First World War and by his work as an MP during the Depression, he was a Tory rebel - an outspoken backbencher, opposing the economic policies of the 1930s and the appeasement policies of his own government. Churchill gave him responsibility during the Second World War with executive command as 'Viceroy of the Mediterranean'. After the War, in opposition, Macmillan was one of the principal reformers of the Conservatives, and after 1951, back in government, served in several important posts before becoming Prime Minister after the Suez Crisis. Supermac examines key events including the controversy over the Cossacks repatriation, the Suez Crisis, You've Never Had It So Good, the Winds of Change, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Profumo Scandal. The culmination of thirty-five years of research into this period by one of our most respected historians, this book gives an unforgettable portrait of a turbulent age. Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize.

1666

1666
Author: Rebecca Rideal
Publisher: John Murray
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2016-08-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1473623553

1666 was a watershed year for England. The outbreak of the Great Plague, the eruption of the second Dutch War and the Great Fire of London all struck the country in rapid succession and with devastating repercussions. Shedding light on these dramatic events, historian Rebecca Rideal reveals an unprecedented period of terror and triumph. Based on original archival research and drawing on little-known sources, 1666: Plague, War and Hellfire takes readers on a thrilling journey through a crucial turning point in English history, as seen through the eyes of an extraordinary cast of historical characters. While the central events of this significant year were ones of devastation and defeat, 1666 also offers a glimpse of the incredible scientific and artistic progress being made at that time, from Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity to Robert Hooke's microscopic wonders. It was in this year that John Milton completed Paradise Lost, Frances Stewart posed for the now-iconic image of Britannia, and a young architect named Christopher Wren proposed a plan for a new London - a stone phoenix to rise from the charred ashes of the old city. With flair and style, 1666 shows a city and a country on the cusp of modernity, and a series of events that forever altered the course of history.

Innovation

Innovation
Author: Peter Ackroyd
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 630
Release: 2021-09-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1250135540

Innovation, the sixth and final volume in Peter Ackroyd's magnificent History of England series, takes readers from the Boer War to the Millennium Dome almost a hundred years later. Innovation brings Peter Ackroyd's History of England to a triumphant close. Ackroyd takes readers from the end of the Boer War and the accession of Edward VII to the end of the twentieth century, when his great-granddaughter Elizabeth II had been on the throne for almost five decades. It was a century of enormous change, encompassing two world wars, four monarchs (Edward VII, George V, George VI and the Queen), the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the Labour Party, women's suffrage, the birth of the NHS, the march of suburbia and the clearance of the slums. It was a period that saw the work of the Bloomsbury Group and T.S. Eliot, of Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin, from the end of the post-war slump to the technicolor explosion of the 1960s, to free love and punk rock, and from Thatcher to Blair. A vividly readable, richly peopled tour de force, Innovation is Peter Ackroyd writing at the height of his powers.