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Budapest: A History of Grandeur and Catastrophe
Budapest today is a palimpsest of its history and partially crystallized present. Its earlier history is best seen on the Castle Hill of Buda, the seat of Hungarian royal power since the beginning in the 13th Century. This peaked in the glory years of King Matthias' reign in the second half of the 15th Century, when Buda was one of the largest and wealthiest cities of Europe. The Ottoman conquest that followed a generation later was a catastrophe whose effect would last two centuries. However when the new Castle Hill of Buda arose, it became a version of Baroque central Europe, controlled by Imperial Vienna. Pest, on the opposite banks of the Danube, is a symbol of the grandeur of the late 19th Century metropolis. Elaborate, historicist buildings and monuments first inhabited by the members of the rising bourgeoisie that had achieved prosperity in the booming Budapest around the year 1900. This era still largely defines the visual appearance of the central city. Nearly half a century later Fascism, and then forty years of Communism, again produced economic dislocation and social tumult in the lives of the people. This is best shown through descriptions of the fate of individual families in Budapest. Since 1990 the metropolis and its people have gone through a frenzied transition for which there was no template: authoritarian socialist economy to volatile capitalism and democracy. The story of the key players and groups in this transition make this tumultuous process particularly vivid. Today Budapest is a city whose role in Europe is still being crystallized. However, inventive entrepreneurs and creative artists are making the city a more and more vibrant home for its citizens and a favoured destination for a rapidly increasing flow of visitors.
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Boudicca – Her Place in History and the Fortunes of Her Tribe
This book, through extensive research and analysis, endeavours to reveal what actually happened when in 60 AD Boudicca was elected to lead the united British tribes in their war against Roman rule. Despite the brutal punishment she had suffered at the hands of the Roman officials, Boudicca recovered to command a brilliantly effective military campaign against the pre-eminent super power of the ancient world.
This is the story of the momentous events that culminated in the great British uprising against the Roman occupiers and their army, and challenges the credibility of the traditional ‘histories’ of Boudicca. So, while it is about Boudicca, her life and achievements, it also seeks to follow the fate of her tribal people – the Iceni. In the aftermath of the war, many migrated through Ireland to the Scottish Highlands.
Regardless of a short lived ‘golden age’, the descendants of the Iceni have suffered a succession of ethnic cleansings over 2000 years through war, famine, migration, plague, forced emigration and invading armies. Today the remnants – represented by the McEachrans, Cochrans and the many variants of these names – are scattered throughout the world and have lost the identity of their origins.
£12.99 -
Bloodstains on the Cocaine Trail
A homicide crisis began sweeping America after massive quantities of cocaine first began their journey into America in 1986. Drugs were trucked along the highways of the Cocaine Trail to every city in America. This influx of a deadly new drug led directly to a series of record deaths from overdoses, suicides and crime-related murders, family breakdowns and destroyed lives. Drugs are credited with driving the highest homicide rates in American history and a raging turf war between street gangs.
Crack cocaine unleashed a brutal era of violence, placing newspapers under enormous pressure to provide coverage. Relations with police were breaking down everywhere and crime coverage was in its death throes. Newspapers could not cover the homicides or give any context or explanations to such a social upheaval. Editors, reporters and police now reveal the shocking truth behind this agonizing episode in American history, when crime reporters had to re-invent journalism to get behind the police blue code. This book combines investigative journalism and narrative style to produce a rare portrait from within the secret inner world of newspapers.
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Black Presence in Britain Through the 16th and 17th Centuries - Teacher Handbook
A black population existed in Britain long before the Windrush generation arrived in 1948. As early as the 16th century, there were evidences of black people in the royal courts of England and Scotland. Britain’s active involvement in the ‘Triangular’ slave trade saw a growth in the number of black people. Did you know that Queen Elizabeth I, alarmed at the growing black population, attempted to expel them? Find out what she did and how this impacted the lives of black people in her realm.
Discover how the increasing numbers of enslaved Africans survived during the 17th century, and how they resisted slavery. For example, do you know the name of the person on the front cover? Learn about her resistance against slavery and the resistance of other Africans in England and the British colonies.
£8.99 -
Before and Throughout WW1 and WW2 to the Peacetime of the Present Day
My book consists of true factual events that have occurred over the years, from WW1 and WW2 to the present day.
Many of the people’s war-time experiences that I have written about are quite horrendous. However, for the sake of future generations, fully understanding how terrible war is and the atrocities that were carried out by every nation, they should be made aware that it could happen at any time to them.
Also, the brave men and women who fought in WW1 and WW2 should never be forgotten.
Whatever happens, we should always try to rise above whatever crisis comes our way, otherwise we are a lost cause and civilisation.
– Elisa Wilkinson
£7.99 -
Albania: To Be or Not to Be?
‘‘We ourselves, at the outset of the war, received from a responsible Serbian source this frank announcement: “We will extirpate the Albanians.” Now that this system of annihilation is being persisted in without modification, despite all European protests, we deem it our duty to reveal the designs of the gentlemen of Belgrade without more ado… In this matter facts speak more loudly than any confessions could. Since Serbian troops crossed the borders last autumn and occupied districts there inhabited by Albanians, one blood-bath has followed another in sequence. In isolated cases the conqueror may have been forced in self-defence to proceed with all martial vigour against an Albanian village from which his troops were perhaps fired on from behind. But to raze hundreds of villages to the ground, to butcher tens of thousands of non-combatants, men, women, and children, these are deeds which no martial law, no precept of self-preservation enjoins...”
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A History of London Boroughs Through Beer Goggles (South East Edition)
Discover facts, fiction, trivia and history of some of London’s boroughs that you may not have known before.
All of this done whilst visiting some very interesting pubs and getting some exercise to boot!
Why not read and discover about a reputed spy for Russia, who lived in a quiet suburb unbeknownst to her neighbours for decades after WWII? Or learn about Her Majesty the Queen’s beasts and what they mean? Find out about the Fighting Temeraire and the part it played in the Battle of Trafalgar. And finally, uncover the Great Fires of London, but not the one everyone talks about.
A wealth of factoids which will astound your friends and family and could very well prepare you for some quiz nights!
£9.99