Normans History

Jacob Fugger lived in Germany at the turn of the 16th century, the grandson of a peasant. By the time he died, his fortune amounted to nearly 2 percent of European GDP. Not even John D. Rockefeller had that kind of wealth. Most people become rich by spotting opportunities, pioneering new technologies, or besting opponents in negotiations. Fugger did all that, but he had an extra quality that allowed him to rise even higher: nerve.

Exploring the successful Norman invasion of England in 1066, this concise and listenable book focuses especially on the often dramatic and enduring changes wrought by William the Conqueror and his followers. Hugh M. Thomas considers the conquest's wide-ranging impact by taking a fresh look at such traditional themes as the influence of battles and great men on history and by assessing how far the shift in ruling dynasty and noble elites affected broader aspects of English history.

The driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit, which marked the completion of the country's first transcontinental railroad, was only the beginning of the race for railroad dominance. In the aftermath of this building feat, dozens of railroads, each with aggressive empire builders at their helms, raced one another for the ultimate prize of a southern transcontinental route that was generally free of snow, shorter in distance, and gentler in gradients. With a meticulous, loving eye, Walter Borneman picks up where most other histories leave off....

When Chuck Tatum began Marine boot camp, he was just a smart-aleck teenager eager to serve his country. Little did he know that he would be training under a living legend of the Corps - Medal of Honor recipient John Basilone, who had almost single-handedly fought off a Japanese force of three thousand on Guadalcanal.

On the night of April 17, 1945, Allied planes dropped 111 bombs on the Burghers' Brewery in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, destroying much of the birthplace of pilsner, the world's most popular beer style and the best-selling alcoholic beverage of all time. Still, workers at the brewery would rally so they could have beer to toast their American, Canadian, and British liberators the following month. It was another twist in pilsner's remarkable story.

The famous conqueror from the European continent came ashore with thousands of men, ready to set up a new kingdom in England. The Britons had resisted the amphibious invasion from the moment his forces landed, but he was able to push forward. In a large winter battle, the Britons’ large army attacked the invaders, but was eventually routed, and the conqueror was able to set up a new kingdom.

In this urgent book, Julie M. Norman and Maia Carter Hallward provide a comprehensive yet accessible introduction to Gaza's political history. Combining a nuanced narrative with hard-hitting reflections from everyday Gazans, the book tells the dynamic story of how Gaza became an epicenter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a pivotal hot-spot in the region.

In this extraordinary memoir, Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass remembers his early life, from his boyhood through the late 1950s, when his book The Tin Drum was published. During the Second World War, Grass was drafted into the Waffen-SS. Taken prisoner by American forces, he spent the final weeks of the war in an American POW camp. After the war, Grass resolved to become an artist and moved to Paris, where he began to write the novel that would make him famous.

The year 1066 CE is one of the largest turning points in British history, with most people today having heard of the Battle of Hastings. The year had begun with the death of Edward the Confessor, a man who would be one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings. In the end, the course of the kingdom's history would shift as William the Bastard became William the Conqueror.

How often can you peek behind the curtains of one of the most secretive governments in the world? Prisoner of the State is the first book to give listeners a front row seat to the secret inner workings of China's government. It is the story of Premier Zhao Ziyang, the man who brought liberal change to that nation and who, at the height of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, tried to stop the massacre and was dethroned for his efforts.

During the five full years of his presidency (1964 - 1968), Lyndon Johnson initiated a breathtaking array of domestic policies and programs, including such landmarks as the Civil Rights Act, Head Start, Food Stamps, Medicare and Medicaid, the Immigration Reform Act, the Water Quality Act, the Voting Rights Act, Social Security reform, and Fair Housing.

Norman: Through My Eyes has evolved over 50 years. Always ahead of his time, Norman Hastings began researching his own family history well before this national obsession became what it is today, and more latterly through a collaboration between Norman and his daughter to convert his notes into an electronic record. The motivation for the book was founded on conversations held with Norman and his mother about her own deprived childhood.

No other narrative from within the corridors of power has offered as frank and intimate an account of the making of the modern Chinese nation as Ji Chaozhu's The Man on Mao's Right. Having served Chairman Mao Zedong and the Communist leadership for two decades, and having become a key figure in China's foreign policy, Ji now provides an honest, detailed account of the personalities and events that shaped today's People's Republic.

More than twenty years ago, 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan set into motion a hugely consequential shift in America's foreign policy: a perpetual state of war that is almost entirely invisible to the American public. War Made Invisible, by the journalist and political analyst Norman Solomon, exposes how this happened, and what its consequences are, from military and civilian casualties to drained resources at home.

The tale of William the Conqueror is written down by numerous contemporaries with various perspectives. It's a tale that would inspire some, while fascinate and even terrify others. It’s a tale of a man from a seemingly small land rising to rule one of the most powerful, stable kingdoms in all of Europe at the time - a kingdom that would sow the seeds of an empire that would sprout many centuries later.

There have been countless attempts to solve the brutal murders committed by Jack the Ripper more than 100 years ago. It seems that almost everyone has their own theory and their own suspect, ranging from the reasonably likely to the entirely preposterous. What this most famous of British criminal cases has always required is a professional eye to analyse it with all the benefits of modern investigate techniques. Now that has been provided in the shape of the man most qualified to solve the case: former British murder-squad detective Trevor Marriott.

The study of the apocryphal gospels, documents about the life or sayings of Jesus that did not become part of the New Testament, is a popular discipline among scholars that now fills several shelves of any respectable library. However, few consider the question of whether the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible, is "complete" and whether in antiquity there were other books besides "Genesis", the "Exodus" or "Judges", with different histories and unknown characters, that were excluded from the canon and got lost in the sands of time.

Timothy Snyder opens a new path in the understanding of modern nationalism and 20th-century socialism by presenting the often overlooked life of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, an important Polish thinker at the beginning of the 20th century. During his brief life in Poland, Paris, and Vienna, Kelles-Krauz influenced or infuriated most of the leaders of the various socialist movements of Central Europe and France. His central ideas ultimately were not accepted by the socialist mainstream at the time of his death.

David Sanz’s journey south is halted abruptly after a devastating turn of events. In a tense battle for survival against thieves and the militia he has been fleeing from, he finds himself shackled and incarcerated in the prison he once guarded. The Duke of Sagrat’s brother, Rafael Perato, has survived the war and the royal court’s treacherous intrigues, but when news of his brother’s death reaches their Most Catholic Majesties his life is thrown into turmoil.

A common stereotype about American Indians is that for centuries, they lived in stataic harmony with nature in a pristine wilderness that remained unchanged until European colonization. Omer C. Stewart was one of the first anthropologists to recognize that Native Americans made significant impact across a wide range of environments. In Forgotten Fires, editors Henry T. Lewis and M. Kat Anderson present Stewart’s original research and insights, presented in the 1950s, yet still provocative today.