This is a comprehensive survey of European history from the coup d'etat of Napoleon Bonaparte in France to the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo, which led to the First World War. I
In France, the German occupation is called simply the "dark years." There were only the "good French" who resisted and the "bad French" who collaborated. Marianne in Chains, a broad and provocative h
"Mr. Gildea's book is at once an elegy and a eulogy... In this volume, every word is from the heart." -- New York Times"William Gildea's When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore is to football what Roger
Many people came to Goldfield, Nevada, America’s last gold-rush town, to seek their fortune. However, on a searing summer day in September 1906, they came not to strike it rich but to watch what would
'The empires of the future would be the empires of the mind' declared Churchill in 1943, envisaging universal empires living in peaceful harmony. Robert Gildea exposes instead the brutal realities of decolonisation and neo-colonialism which have shaped the postwar world. Even after the rush of French and British decolonisation in the 1960s, the strings of economic and military power too often remained in the hands of the former colonial powers. The more empire appears to have declined and fallen, the more a fantasy of empire has been conjured up as a model for projecting power onto the world stage and legitimised colonialist intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. This aggression, along with the imposition of colonial hierarchies in metropolitan society, has excluded, alienated and even radicalised immigrant populations. Meanwhile, nostalgia for empire has bedevilled relations with Europe and played a large part in explaining Brexit.
Nineteenth-century France was one of the world's great cultural beacons, renowned for its dazzling literature, philosophy, art, poetry and technology. Yet this was also a tumultuous century of politic
For those who lived in the wake of the French Revolution, from the storming of the Bastille to Napoleon’s final defeat, its aftermath left a profound wound that no subsequent king, emperor, or
The French Resistance has an iconic status in the struggle to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe, but its story is entangled in myths. Gaining a true understanding of the Resistance means recognizing how i
Courageous, sometimes absurdly funny, and often heartbreaking, this is one woman's journey as she learns that there are some things she can't cure with comedyShe was told, "you've got cancer." She exp
Clair Bee (1896-1983) was a hugely successful basketball coach at Rider College and Long Island University with a 412 and 87 record before his career was derailed in 1951 by a point-shaving scandal. I
In 1997 Indiana crowned its last all-state champion, marking the end of an eighty-seven-year-old Hoosier tradition. Despite public outcry, the statewide tournament has been replaced by four divisional
