Historie og samfunn

Revolutionary practitioner, theorist, factional chief, sparkling writer, 'ladies' man' (e.g., his affair with Frieda Kahlo), icon of the Revolution, anti-Jewish Jew, philosopher of everyday life, grand seigneur of his household, father and hunted victim, Trotsky lived a brilliant life in extraordinary times. Robert Service draws on hitherto unexamined archives and on his profound understanding of Russian history to draw a portrait of the man and his legacy, revealing that though his followers have represented Trotsky as a pure revolutionary soul and a powerful intellect unjustly hounded into exile by Stalin and his henchmen. The reality is very different, as this masterful and compelling biography reveals.

Expert and stunning illustrations show in painstaking detail the uniforms and their developments for all the major nations involved in World War I.

Mahatma Gandhi became a legend in his own time. A tireless fighter for human rights and for Indian independence, his strategy of satyagraha, or passive resistance, earned him the admiration of millions. This biography offers a definitive account of Gandhi's life. It tells the story of one man who changed the world forever.

Man's Search For Meaning is a compelling and thought-provoking book by Viktor E Frankl. Published by Ebury Publishing in 2011, this book falls under a genre that blends psychology, philosophy, and autobiography. This masterpiece by Frankl encapsulates his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, and describes his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose in life to feel positive about, and then immersively imagining that outcome. The central theme of the book is that meaning can be found in life in every moment of living; life never ceases to have meaning, even in suffering and death. Ebury Publishing is proud to have this profound and influential book in their collection. Read this book to embark on a journey of self-discovery and enlightenment.

In the 150 years since the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment (the abolition of slavery), the story of race and America has remained a brutally simple one. It is the story of the black body, exploited to create the country''s foundational wealth, violently segregated to unite a nation after a civil war and, today, still disproportionately threatened, locked up and killed in the streets. How can America reckon with its fraught racial history? Between The World And Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates'' attempt to answer that question.

Robin Laing set out to visit every distillery in the Speyside area, from Benromach to Tomintoul, and presents a guide which is part history, part travelogue and part commentary on the changes in the whisky industry.

American fascists disseminate their ideas on the alternative broadcast networks and through their own publishers and schools. This book show they started and where they are. It produces a work of cultural and political anthropology and an impassioned, no-holds-barred polemic.

On the night of 14/15 April 1912, a brandnew, supposedly unsinkable ship, the largest and most luxurious vessel in the world at the time, collided with an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage. Of the 2,208 people on board, only 712 were saved. The rest either drowned or froze to death in the icy-cold waters of the North Atlantic. How could this 'unsinkable' vessel sink and why did so few of those aboard survive?The authors bring the tragedy to life, telling the story of the ship's design, construction and maiden voyage. The stories of individuals who sailed on her, many previously known only as names on yellowing passenger and crew lists, are brought to light using rarely-seen accounts of the sinking. The stories of passengers of all classes and crewmembers alike, are explored. They tell the dramatic stories of lives lost and people saved, of the rescue ship Carpathia, and of the aftermath of the sinking. Never again would a large passenger liner sail without lifeboats for all. Despite the tragedy, the sinking of the Titanic indirectly led to untold numbers of lives being saved due to new regulations that came into force after the tragedy. Profusely illustrated, including many rare and unique views of the ship and those who sailed on her, this is as accurate and engrossing a telling of the life of the White Star Line's Titanic and her sinking as you will read anywhere. Made special by the use of so many rare survivor accounts from the eye witnesses to that night to remember, the narrative places the reader in the middle of the maiden voyage, and brings the tragic sinking to life as never before.

What will you do when the unthinkable happens in your life? Her parents called her Lenya Lion because of her ferocious personality and hair that had been wild and mane-like since birth. But they never expected that, five days before Christmas, their five-year-old daughter would suddenly go to heaven

Presents the history of how two countries on the northern edge of Europe built societies in the twentieth century that became objects of inspiration and envy around the world. This title tells how Norway and Sweden achieved a rare feat by realizing grand visions of societies that combine stability, prosperity, and social welfare.

In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all. Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second is the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined just how and when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. Against this backdrop Gwynne presents the compelling drama of Cynthia Ann Parker, a nine-year-old girl who was kidnapped by Comanches in 1836. She grew to love her captors and became infamous as the "e;White Squaw"e; who refused to return until her tragic capture by Texas Rangers in 1860. More famous still was her son Quanah, a warrior who was never defeated and whose guerrilla wars in the Texas Panhandle made him a legend. S. C. Gwynne's account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told.

There is a reason why Stephen King is one of the bestselling writers in the world, ever. Described in the Guardian as 'the most remarkable storyteller in modern American literature', Stephen King writes books that draw you in and are impossible to put down.Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in the vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999 - and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery.

All-powerful, brilliant, decisive, ruthlessly effective this is the image of the CIA as portrayed in countless films and novels. It is wrong. This shocking book, based on thousands of declassified documents and interviews with agents at all levels, shows the reality behind the glamorous myth: a blundering, chaotic and dangerously incompetent organization, so ineffective it was nicknamed Can t Identify Anything by Nato forces. In a story of botched coups, missed targets, lost operatives and fatal errors, Tim Weiner shows how the CIA now poses a threat not only to the security of the US, but the world.

A classic of spiritual literature - Mikhail Naimy, a contemporary of Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet, has woven legend, mysticism, philosophy and poetry into a powerful allegorical story that has touched the hearts of millions of readers.

"My heart wandered through the world constantly seeking after my cure, but the sweet and delicious water of life had to break through the granite of my heart." When the words of Rumi enter your heart, something softens, breaks, and is subtly reborn. That he wrote the words seven hundred years ago in a medieval Persian world that bears little resemblance to ours makes their uncanny resonance to us today just that much more remarkable. Here is a treasury of daily wisdom from this most beloved of all the Sufi masters-both his prose and his ecstatic poetry-that you can use to start every day for a year, or that you can dip into for inspiration any time you need to break through the granite of your heart.

Cyberspace is all around us. We depend on it for everything we do. We have reengineered our business, governance, and social relations around a planetary network unlike any before it. But there are dangers looming, and malign forces are threatening to transform this extraordinary domain.In Black Code, Ronald J. Deibert, a leading expert on digital technology, security, and human rights, lifts the lid on cyberspace and shows what's at stake for Internet users and citizens. As cyberspace develops in unprecedented ways, powerful agents are scrambling for control. Predatory cyber criminal gangs such as Koobface have made social media their stalking ground. The discovery of Stuxnet, a computer worm reportedly developed by Israel and the United States and aimed at Iran's nuclear facilities, showed that state cyberwar is now a very real possibility. Governments and corporations are in collusion and are setting the rules of the road behind closed doors.This is not the way it was supposed to be. The Internet's original promise of a global commons of shared knowledge and communications is now under threat. Drawing on the first-hand experiences of one of the most important protagonists in the battle - the Citizen Lab and its global network of frontline researchers, who have spent more than a decade cracking cyber espionage rings and uncovering attacks on citizens and NGOs worldwide - Black Code takes readers on a fascinating journey into the battle for cyberspace. Thought-provoking, compelling, and sometimes frightening, it is a wakeup call to citizens who have come to take the Internet for granted. Cyberspace is ours, it is what we make of it, Deibert argues, and we need to act now before it slips through our grasp.

The transformation of man to beast is a central aspect of traditional pagan rituals that are centuries old and which celebrate the seasonal cycle, fertility, life and death.

Joseph Campbell, arguably the greatest mythologist of the twentieth century, was certainly one of our greatest storytellers. This masterfully crafted book interweaves conversations between Campbell and some of the people he inspired, including poet Robert Bly, anthropologist Angeles Arrien, filmmaker David Kennard, Doors drummer John Densmore, psychiatric pioneer Stanislov Grof, Nobel laureate Roger Guillemen, and others. Campbell reflects on subjects ranging from the origins and functions of myth, the role of the artist, and the need for ritual to the ordeals of love and romance. With poetry and humor, Campbell recounts his own quest and conveys the excitement of his lifelong exploration of our mythic traditions, what he called “the one great story of mankind.”

With a new introduction from the author, this is the 25th anniversary edition of the Pulitzer prize-winning story of how the atomic bomb came to be.

HMS Royal Oak was a Revenge-class battleship of the British Royal Navy, infamously torpedoed at anchor by the German submarine U-47 on 14 October 1939. Royal Oak was anchored at Scapa Flow in Orkney, Scotland when she became the first of the five Royal Navy battleships and battle cruisers sunk in the Second World War. The loss of life was heavy: of Royal Oak's complement of 1,234 men and boys, 833 were killed that night or died later of their wounds. The raid made an immediate celebrity and war hero out of the German U-boat commander, Gunther Prien, who became the first submarine officer to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. To the British, the raid demonstrated that the Germans were capable of bringing the naval war to their home waters, and the shock resulted in rapidly arranged changes to dockland security. Now lying upside-down in 30 m of water with her hull 5 m beneath the surface, Royal Oak is a designated war grave. Includes 103 Photographs

The untold story of how British-French rivalry drew the battle-lines of the modern Middle East

This extended essay by one of the world's leading historians seeks, in its first part, to excavate and to vindicate, the neo-Roman theory of free citizens and free states as it developed in early modern Britain. This analysis leads on to a powerful defence of the nature, purposes and goals of intellectual history and the history of ideas. As Quentin Skinner says, 'the intellectual historian can help us to appreciate how far the values embodied in our present way of life, and our present ways of thinking about those values, reflect a series of choices made at different times between different possible worlds'. This essay provides one of the most substantial statements yet made about the importance, relevance and potential excitement of this form of historical enquiry. Liberty before Liberalism is based on Quentin Skinner's Inaugural Lecture as Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, delivered in 1997.

Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto has become one of the world’s most influential political tracts since its original 1848 publication. Part of the Rethinking the Western Tradition series, this edition of the Manifesto features an extensive introduction by Jeffrey C. Isaac, and essays by Vladimir Tismaneanu, Steven Lukes, Saskia Sassen, and Stephen Eric Bronner, each well known for their writing on questions central to the Manifesto and the history of Marxism. These essays address the Manifesto's historical background, its impact on the development of twentieth-century Communism, its strengths and weaknesses as a form of ethical critique, and its relevance in the post-1989, post-Cold War world. This edition also includes much ancillary material, including the many Prefaces published in the lifetimes of Marx and Engels, and Engels's "e;Principles of Communism."e;

From the author of Blue Like Jazz comes a story about finding the keys to a healthy relationship and discovering they are also the keys to a healthy family, a healthy career, and a healthy mind. And it all feels like a conversation with the best kind of friend: smart, funny, true, important. Scary Close is Donald Miller at his best.

Happy City is the story of how the solutions to this century's problems - from climate change to overpopulation - lie in unlocking the secrets to great city living This is going to be the century of the city. But what actually makes a good city? Why, really, are some cities a joy to live in? As writer and journalist Charles Montgomery reveals, it's not how much money your neighbours earn, or how spectacular the views from your windows are, or even how pleasant the climate is that makes the most difference. Journeying to dozens of cities - from Atlanta to Bogot to Vancouver - he talks to the new champions of the happy city to discover the progressive movements already transforming people's lives. He meets the visionary Colombian mayor who turned some of the world's most dangerous roads into an urban cycling haven; the Danish architect who brought the lessons of medieval Tuscan towns to modern-day Copenhagen; the New York City transport commissioner who made out of the gridlock of Times Square a place where people could lounge in the sun; and the Californian mother with the super-commute who completely rethought her idea of the suburban dream for the sake of her son's health. These urban trailblazers, as well as the many other planners, engineers, grass-roots campaigners and ordinary citizens, offer a wealth of surprising lessons for the rest of us. From how saying hello to your neighbours is just as important to your sense of trust as contact with close friends and family, and how living close to parks makes us smarter, kinder and reduces local crime rates, to the importance of the 'magic triangle' rule, Happy City shows thatsimple changes can make all the difference.Charles Montgomery is a journalist and urban experimentalist from Vancouver, Canada. His writings on urban planning, psychology, culture, and history have appeared in magazines and journals on three continents. He is the author of two previous books, and is a member of the BMW Guggenheim Lab team.

'The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.'Marx and Engels's revolutionary summons to the working classes - one of the most important and influential political theories ever formulated.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). Marx's works available in Penguin Classics are Capital, Dispatches for the New York Tribune, Early Writings, Grundrisse, The Portable Karl Marx and Revolution and War.

The classic translation of the cornerstone work of western philosophyPlato's Republic is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, it is an inquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. During the conversation other questions are raised: what is goodness; what is reality; what is knowledge; what is the purpose of education? With remarkable lucidity and deft use of allegory, Plato arrives at a depiction of a state bound by harmony and ruled by 'philosopher kings'. Translated by DESMOND LEE with an Introduction by MELISSA LANE

Sir Anthony Kenny unfolds a magisterial new history of Western philosophy. Specially written for a broad popular readership, Kenny's lucid and stimulating history will become the definitive work for anyone interested in the people and ideas that shaped the course of Western thought.