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History and Current Events December 2023 |
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| Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World by Mary BeardPopular historian Mary Beard's sweeping and thought-provoking latest chronicles nearly three centuries of ancient Roman emperors' social and political lives, from Julius Caesar to Alexander Severus. Try this next: Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine by Barry Strauss. |
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Normal Women : Nine Hundred Years of Making History by Philippa GregoryThe culmination of the author's life work, this book is a radical reframing of our Great Britain's story, told not with the rise and fall of kings and the occasional queen, but through social and cultural transition, showing the agency, persistence, and effectiveness of women in society - from 1066 to modern times. Did women do nothing to shape our country's culture and traditions during nine centuries of political turmoil, plague, famine, prosperity, religious reform? Philippa Gregory answers this question by telling stories of the soldiers, guild widows, highwaywomen, pirates, miners and ship owners, international traders, theatre runners, social campaigners and 'female husbands' who did much to build the fabric of our society and in ways as diverse and varied as the women themselves. This is not another book about heroines. Instead, it is a book about millions of women, not just three or four. The 'normal women' you meet in these pages rode in jousts, flew Spitfires, issued their own currency and built ships, corn mills and houses as part of their daily lives. They went to war, tilled the fields, campaigned, wrote and loved. They committed crimes, or treason, worshipped many types of gods, cooked and nursed, invented things and rioted. A lot. A landmark work of scholarship and storytelling, this is a history not a call to action. It looks back at facts and the past lives of some 50% of the population without the judgemental eyes of the present.
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Continuous Ferment : The History of Beer and Brewing in New Zealand by Greg RyanSince the first brew by Captain James Cook and the crew of the Resolution at Dusky Sound in April 1773, the story of beer has been deeply intertwined with the history of Aotearoa - from the early settlers' prodigious consumption of golden ale to the six o'clock swill, from prohibition to the 'Black Budget', from the domination of Lion and DB to the rise of craft beer. In this remarkable story of New Zealanders and beer, Greg Ryan tackles the big questions: Why did people drink and did they do so excessively by contemporary international standards? What did people drink and in what circumstances? How did tastes change over time? What role did brewers and publicans play in the community, other than as dispensers of alcohol? Richly illustrated, astute and entertaining, Continuous Ferment is both a fascinating analysis of New Zealand's social history and a book for anyone with an enthusiasm for malt and hops, barrels and bottles, pilsners and porters.
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The Road : A Story of Romans and Ways to the Past by Christopher HadleyHave you ever heard the march of legions on a lonely country road? For two thousand years, the roads the Romans built have determined the flow of ideas and folktales, where battles were fought and where pilgrims trod. Almost everyone in Britain lives close to a Roman road, if only we knew where to look. In the beginning was Watling Street, the first road scored on the land when the invading Romans arrived on a cold and alien Kentish shore in 43 CE. Campaign roads rolled out to all points of the compass, forcing their way inland and as the Britons fell back, the roads pursued them relentlessly, carrying troops, supplies and military despatches. In the years of fighting that followed, as the legions pushed onwards across what is now England, into Wales and north into Scotland in search of booty, mineral wealth, land and tribute, they left behind a vast road network, linking marching camps and forts, changing the landscape, etching the story of the Roman advance into the face of the land, channelling our lives today. Christopher Hadley, acclaimed author of Hollow Places, takes us on a lyrical journey into this past, retracing and searching for an elusive Roman road that sprang from one of the busiest road hubs in Roman Britain. His passage is not always easy. Time and nature have erased many clues; bridges rotted and whole woods grew across the route. Carters found an easier ford downstream, and people broke up its milestones to mend new paths. Year after year the heavy clay swallowed whole lengths of it; the once mighty road became a bridleway, an overgrown hollow-way, a parched mark in the soil. Hadley leads us on a hunt to discover, in Hilaire Belloc's phrase, 'all that has arisen along the way'. Gathering traces of archaeology, history and landscape from poems, church walls, hag stones and cropmarks, oxlips, killing places, hauntings and immortals, and things buried too deep for archaeology, The Road is a mesmerising journey into two thousand years of history only now giving up its secrets.
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Once a King : The Lost Memoir of Edward VIII by Jane Marguerite TippettConsidering Edward VIII's travels and interests as Prince of Wales as well as his relationship with Wallis Simpson and the course of events leading up to his abdication and subsequent exile, Once a King offers a previously unexplored lens through which we encounter first-hand the hitherto concealed subtlety and raw emotion of two of the twentieth century's most iconic Royal figures: the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
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Material world : the six raw materials that shape modern civilization
by Ed Conway
"The story of civilization from an entirely new vantage point-the six raw materials that have shaped and will continue to shape humanity's destiny. Sand, iron, salt, oil, copper and lithium: The struggle for these fundamental materials has created empires, razed civilizations, and fed our ingenuity and our greed for thousands of years. It is a story that is far from finished. Though we are told we now live in a weightless world of information, we dug more stuff out of the earth in 2017 than in all of human history before 1950. And it's getting exponentially worse. To make one bar of gold, we now have to dig 5,000 tons of earth. For every ton of fossil fuels, we extract six tons of other materials-from sand to stone to wood to metal. Even as we pare back our consumption of fossil fuels we continue to redouble our consumption of everything else. Why? Because these ingredients are the basis for everything. They power our phones and electric cars, build our homes and offices, enable the printing of our books, and supply our packaging. Our modern world would not exist without them, and the hidden battle to control them will shape our future. This is an epic journey across continents, cultures and epochs that captures the astonishing extent to which humanity'sprosperity is intertwined with what we extract from the earth and adapt to our needs and desires. It is a story of our past and future, from the ground up"
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Saved : a war reporter's mission to make it home
by Benjamin Hall
"When veteran war reporter Benjamin Hall woke up in Kyiv on the morning of March 14, 2022, he had no idea that, within hours, Russian bombs would nearly end his life. This is the story of how he survived--a story that continues to this day. For the first time, Hall shares his experience in full--from his ground-level view of the war to his dramatic rescue to his arduous, and ongoing, recovery. Going inside the events that have permanently transformed him, Hall recalls his time at the front lines of our world's conflicts, exploring how his struggle to step away from war reporting led him back one perilous last time"
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| Code Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America's Most Dangerous Female Spy... by Jim PopkinIn this well-researched espionage tale utilizing never-before-seen documents, journalist Jim Popkin chronicles the exploits of intelligence analyst Ana Montes, "the most important spy you've never heard of," who spent 17 years passing American secrets to Cuba. Read-alike: Agent Sonya: The Spy Next Door by Ben Macintyre. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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