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  1. History

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History

Large 9781408839997

Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan

$25.00 NZD

Category: History

The sun is setting on the Western world. Slowly but surely, the direction in which the world spins has reversed- where for the last five centuries the globe turned westwards on its axis, it now turns to the east. For centuries, fame and fortune were to be found in the west - in the New World of the Amer icas. Today, it is the east which calls out to those in search of riches and adventure. Sweeping right across Central Asia and deep into China and India, a region that once took centre stage is again rising to dominate global politics, commerce and culture. A major reassessment of world history, The Silk Roads is a dazzling exploration of the forces that have driven the rise and fall of empires, determined the flow of ideas and goods and are now heralding a new dawn in international affairs. ...Show more

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Large 9780723247852

The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or The Roly-Poly Pudding (Classic Edition #16) by Beatrix Potter

$16.00 NZD

Category: History | Series: Beatrix Potter Classic

The first farm that Beatrix Potter owned, Hill Top, was an old house with many hiding places for the rats and mice against which she waged a constant battle. In The Tale of Samuel Whiskers this farmhouse is Tom Kitten's home and the story tells what happens when Tom accidentally comes upon the rat Samue l Whiskers living in a secret hideout behind the attic walls. ...Show more

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Large 9781911214984

The SS Officer's Armchair - In Search of a Hidden Life by Daniel Lee

$40.00 NZD

Category: History

It began with an armchair. It began with the surprise discovery of a stash of personal documents covered in swastikas that had been sewn into its cushion. The SS Officer's Armchair is the story of what happened next, as historian Daniel Lee follows the trail of cold calls, documents, coincidences and fa mily secrets, to uncover the life of one Dr Robert Griesinger from Stuttgart. Who was he? What had his life been - and how had it ended? Lee reveals the strange life of a man whose ambition propelled him to become part of the Nazi machinery of terror. He discovers unexpected ancestors in New Orleans, untold stories of SS life and family fragmentation. As Lee delves deeper, Griesinger's responsibility as an active participant in Nazi crimes becomes clearer. Dr Robert Griesinger's name is not infamous. But to understand the inner workings of the Third Reich, we need to know not just its leaders, but the ordinary Nazis who made up its ranks. Revealing how Griesinger's choices reverberate into present-day Germany, and among descendants of perpetrators, Lee raises potent questions about blame, manipulation and responsibility. A historical detective story and a gripping account of one historian's hunt for answers, The SS Officer's Armchair is at once a unique addition to our understanding of Nazi Germany and a chilling reminder of how such regimes are made not by monsters, but by ordinary people. ...Show more

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Large 9780733335266

The Golden Maze: A Biography of Prague (HB) by Richard Fidler

$45.00 NZD

Category: History

ABC broadcaster and bestselling author of Ghost Empire and Saga Land, Richard Fidler is back with a personally curated history of the magical city that is Prague. In 1989, Richard Fidler was living in London as part of the provocative Australian comedy trio The Doug Anthony All Stars when revolution bro ke out across Europe. Excited by this galvanising historic, human, moment, he travelled to Prague, where a decrepit police state was being overthrown by crowds of ecstatic citizens. His experience of the Velvet Revolution never let go of him. Thirty years later Fidler returns to Prague to uncover the glorious and grotesque history of Europe's most instagrammed and uncanny city: a jumble of gothic towers, baroque palaces and zig-zag lanes that has survived plagues, pogroms, Nazi terror and Soviet tanks. Founded in the ninth Century, Prague gave the world the golem, the robot, and the world's biggest statue of Stalin, a behemoth that killed almost everyone who touched it. Fidler tells the story of the reclusive emperor who brought the world's most brilliant minds to Prague Castle to uncover the occult secrets of the universe. He explores the Black Palace, the wartime headquarters of the Nazi SS, and he meets victims of the communist secret police. Reaching back into Prague's mythic past, he finds the city's founder, the pagan priestess Libussa who prophesised: I see a city whose glory will touch the stars. Following the story of Prague from its origins in medieval darkness to its uncertain present, Fidler does what he does so well - curates an absolutely engaging and compelling history of a place. You will learn things you never knew, with a tour guide who is erudite, inquisitive, and the best storyteller you could have as your companion.  ...Show more

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Large 9780141978505

A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths by John Barton

$38.00 NZD

Category: History

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTELLER A SUNDAY TIMES AND OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019 'With emotional and psychological insight, Barton unlocks this sleeping giant of our culture. In the process, he has produced a masterpiece.' Sunday Times The Bible is the central book of Western culture. For the two faiths w hich hold it sacred, it is the bedrock of their religion, a singular authority on what to believe and how to live. For non-believers too, it has a commanding status: it is one of the great works of world literature, woven to an unparalleled degree into our language and thought. This book tells the story of the Bible, explaining how it came to be constructed and how it has been understood, from its remote beginnings down to the present. John Barton describes how the narratives, laws, proverbs, prophecies, poems and letters which comprise the Bible were written and when, what we know - and what we cannot know - about their authors and what they might have meant, as well as how these extraordinarily disparate writings relate to each other. His incisive readings shed new light on even the most familiar passages, exposing not only the sources and traditions behind them, but also the busy hands of the scribes and editors who assembled and reshaped them. Untangling the process by which some texts which were regarded as holy, became canonical and were included, and others didn't, Barton demonstrates that the Bible is not the fixed text it is often perceived to be, but the result of a long and intriguing evolution. Tracing its dissemination, translation and interpretation in Judaism and Christianity from Antiquity to the rise of modern biblical scholarship, Barton elucidates how meaning has both been drawn from the Bible and imposed upon it. Part of the book's originality is to illuminate the gap between religion and scripture, the ways in which neither maps exactly onto the other, and how religious thinkers from Augustine to Luther and Spinoza have reckoned with this. Barton shows that if we are to regard the Bible as 'authoritative', it cannot be as believers have so often done in the past. ...Show more

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Large 9780241304549

The History of Philosophy by A. C. Grayling

$30.00 NZD

Category: History

The first authoritative and accessible single-volume history of philosophy to cover both Western and Eastern traditions, from one of the world's most eminent thinkers The story of philosophy is an epic tale, spanning civilizations and continents. It explores some of the most creative minds in history. But not since the long-popular classic Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, published in 1945, has there been a comprehensive and entertaining single-volume history of this great, intellectual, world-shaping journey. With characteristic clarity and elegance, A. C. Grayling takes the reader from the worldviews and moralities before the age of the Buddha, Confucius, and Socrates through Christianity's capture of the European mind, from the Renaissance and Enlightenment on to Mill, Nietzsche, Sartre and, finally, philosophy today. Bringing together these many threads that all too often run parallel, he surveys in tandem the great philosophical traditions of India, China and the Persian-Arabic world. Perfect for students and revelatory to enthusiasts of philosophy, Grayling's narrative dramatizes the interchange between and within eras and epochs, asking what we have learned, but also what progress is still to be made. Destined to be his magnum opus, and astonishing in its range and accessibility, this is a landmark work. ...Show more

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Large 9781526605016

Work: A History of How We Spend Our Time by James Suzman

$33.00 NZD

Category: History

We live in a society where work defines who we are, what we do and who we spend our time with. But this wasn't always the case. For 95% of our history, our ancestors had a radically different view of its importance; hunter gatherers rarely worked more than fifteen hours per week. How did work become the central organisational principle of our societies? What are the social, economic and environmental consequences of a culture of work? And what might a world where work plays a far less important role look like? In this major book, James Suzman charts a natural and cultural history of work. Drawing on field work at the interface between hunter gatherer societies, simple agricultural societies and the industrialised world, and integrating new insights from epigenetics, ethology, genomics, social anthropology, economics and evolutionary theory, it challenges the way we think about work today and shows why automation may be the key to unlocking a more sustainable future. ...Show more

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Large 9781784162344

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

$24.00 NZD

Category: History

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped pe ople-traffickers. What they had in common was the year of their murders- 1888. Their murderer was never identified, but the name created for him by the press has become far more famous than any of these five women. Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, historian Hallie Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, and gives these women back their stories. __________________ 'At last, the Ripper's victims get a voice... An eloquent, stirring challenge to reject the prevailing Ripper myth.' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'Devastatingly good. The Five will leave you in tears, of pity and of rage.' LUCY WORSLEY 'Dignity is finally returned to these unfortunate women.' PROFESSOR DAME SUE BLACK 'Haunting' SUNDAY TIMES 'What a brilliant and necessary book' JO BAKER, author of Longbourn 'Beautifully written and with the grip of a thriller, it will open your eyes and break your heart.' ERIN KELLY, 'An outstanding work of history-from-below ... magnificent' THE SPECTATOR ...Show more

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Large 9781529378757

Burning the Books: A history of knowledge under attack by Richard Ovenden

$38.00 NZD

Category: History

Opening with the notorious bonfires of 'un-German' and Jewish literature in 1933 that offered such a clear signal of Nazi intentions, Burning the Books takes us on a 3000-year journey through the destruction of knowledge and the fight against all the odds to preserve it. Richard Ovenden, director of th e world-famous Bodleian Library, explains how attacks on libraries and archives have been a feature of history since ancient times but have increased in frequency and intensity during the modern era. Libraries are far more than stores of literature, through preserving the legal documents such as Magna Carta and records of citizenship, they also support the rule of law and the rights of citizens. Today, the knowledge they hold on behalf of society is under attack as never before. In this fascinating book, he explores everything from what really happened to the Great Library of Alexandria to the Windrush papers, from Donald Trump's deleting embarrassing tweets to John Murray's burning of Byron's memoirs in the name of censorship. At once a powerful history of civilisation and a manifesto for the vital importance of physical libraries in our increasingly digital age, Burning the Books is also a very human story animated by an unlikely cast of adventurers, self-taught archaeologists, poets, freedom-fighters -- and, of course, librarians and the heroic lengths they will go to preserve and rescue knowledge, ensuring that civilisation survives. From the rediscovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the desert, hidden from the Romans and lost for almost 2000 years to the medieval manuscript that inspired William Morris, the knowledge of the past still has so many valuable lessons to teach us and we ignore it at our peril. ...Show more

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Large 9781847924131

Himalaya - A Human History HB by Ed Douglas

$60.00 NZD

Category: History

This is the first major history of the Himalaya- an epic story of peoples, cultures and adventures among the world's highest mountains. Spanning millennia, from its earliest inhabitants to the present conflicts over Tibet and Everest, Himalaya is a soaring account of resilience and conquest, discovery and plunder, oppression and enlightenment at the 'roof of the world'. From all around the globe, the unique and astonishing geography of the Himalaya has attracted those in search of spiritual and literal elevation- pilgrims, adventurers and mountaineers seeking to test themselves among the world's most spectacular and challenging peaks. But far from being wild and barren, the Himalaya has throughout the ages been home to an astonishing diversity of indigenous and local cultures, as well as a crossroads for trade, and a meeting point and conflict zone for the world's superpowers. Here Jesuit missionaries exchanged technologies with Tibetan Lamas, Mongol Khans employed Nepali craftsmen, Armenian merchants exchanged musk and gold with Mughals. Here too the East India Company grappled for dominance with China's emperors, independent India has been locked in conflict with Mao's Communists and their successors, and the ideological confrontation of the Cold War is now being buried beneath mass tourism and ecological transformation. Featuring scholars and tyrants, bandits and CIA agents, go-betweens and revolutionaries, Himalaya is a panoramic, character-driven history on the grandest but also the most human scale, by far the most comprehensive yet written, encompassing geology and genetics, botany and art, and bursting with stories of courage and resourcefulness. ...Show more

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Large 9781786899118

The Assassin's Cloak - An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists by Irene Taylor (Editor); Alan Taylor (Editor); Taylor, Alan Taylor

$55.00 NZD

Category: History

A beautiful and updated edition of this collection of the world's greatest diarists on its twentieth anniversary.

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Large 9780141988351

Chernobyl - History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy

$29.00 NZD

Category: History

*WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2018* 'As moving as it is painstakingly researched. . . a cracking read' Viv Groskop, Observer On 26 April 1986 at 1.23am a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine exploded. While the authorities scrambled to understand what w as occurring, workers, engineers, firefighters and those living in the area were abandoned to their fate. The blast put the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation, contaminating over half of Europe with radioactive fallout. In Chernobyl, award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy draws on recently opened archives to recreate these events in all their drama. A moment by moment account of the heroes, perpetrators and victims of a tragedy, Chernobyl is the first full account of a gripping, unforgettable Cold War story. 'A compelling history of the 1986 disaster and its aftermath . . . plunges the reader into the sweaty, nervous tension of the Chernobyl control room on that fateful night when human frailty and design flaws combined to such devastating effect' Daniel Beer, Guardian 'Haunting ... near-Tolstoyan. His voice is humane and inflected with nostalgia' Roland Elliott Brown, Spectator 'Extraordinary, vividly written, powerful storytelling ... the first full-scale history of the world's worst nuclear disaster, one of the defining moments in the Cold War, told minute by minute' Victor Sebestyen Sunday Times 'Plays out like a classical tragedy ... fascinating' Julian Evans, Daily Telegraph 'Here at last is the monumental history the disaster deserves' Julie McDowall, The Times ...Show more

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