What does it mean to be a knight in shining armour? This book, curated by the former senior curator at the Royal Armouries, describes how knights evolved between 1200 AD and 1500 AD in English and European history. The chapters will look at knights' organisations, training, armour and weapons as well as their campaigns and battles. Learn how early knights were fighting men but the concept of 'chivalric knights' emerged in the 12th century when they were denoted for their horsemanship, their respect for women, and their protection of the church and the weak. Discover how Lords had their familia ('family') of paid household knights which meant they were available at short notice and were useful for those in conquered or turbulent regions such as the Marches on the borders with Wales or Scotland. Looking at the 14th century, understand that knights and squires served in several different contexts, whether they were household knights, feudal troops, volunteers or mercenary-style paid fighting men. The cultural importance of chivalric knights is also explored in the book's chapter such as the sub-Roman Arthurian tales with the medieval knight who was a brave and bold adventurer seeking the Holy Grail that only the purest would attain. Another section looks at the politics of knights including the Wars of the Roses in which there was a revival of the 'Commissions of Array', a summons of town and county militias which required men to be 'well and defencibly arrayed'. The book includes fantastic images, such as a rendering of Sir Geoffrey Luttrell from between 1335 and 1345 in which he receives his lance and helm from his wife while his daughter-in-law holds his shield. There is a diagram of a knight from around 1210 which shows his iron scale armour, conical helmet, iron prick spurs and an array of swords. The book includes stunning pictures of artwork depicting battles including the battle of Agincourt (as imagined in 15th century) and another 15th century illustration shows John II of France captured by English soldiers during the battle of Poitiers in 1356. 7.6" x 7.9", colour images, 194pp.

Sub-titled 'History, Folklore and Victorian Pedantry' from the pages of 'Notes & Queries', a weekly magazine founded in London in 1849. It was a 'medium of inter-communication for literary men, artists, antiquaries, genealogists etc.' and its motto was 'when found, make a note of', a saying of Captain Cuttle, the hook-handed old salt of Dickens's Dombey & Son. Subscribers sent in notes on curious facts, others arcane queries to be answered, and the book anthologises the most interesting exchanges from the First Series 1849-55. Ordered by subject with judicious footnotes, there are delightfully pedantic remarks from daily life and amusements, the doings of fairies, revolting folk remedies, poetry good and bad, the oddities of natural history. Included is a selection of advertisements for the magazine such as products as Grosjean's Celebrated Trowsers and Rimmel's Toilet Vinegar (good for several purposes) and the Reverend Edmund Saul Dixon's treatise on 'Ornamental and Domestic Poultry'. There are church matters, law and order, wills and epitaphs, tales of the supernatural, popular zoology, superstitions, local customs. Under Language and Literature books and booksellers, words and their use and personal names; under Scientific Investigations technology and innovation of the time, medicine and physiology and physics problems. 'Every book that is worth reading, except, perhaps, a work of fiction, requires an Index; and the more books there are in the world the more requisite it becomes.' 'The discovery of drowned bodies by loading a loaf with mercury, and putting it afloat on a stream, or by carting it into the river, as the Indians do...' A German bookseller advertises his second-hand catalogue of 'Erotica Facetiae Satyrae, Curiosa, Sexuale Vavria' in various languages and Kerr and Strang Perfumers and Wig Makers advertise Perukes with 'Partings and crowns so natural as to defy detection'. 'Hairdressing a pitiful and unmanly employment' and the habit of profane swearing by the English are all up for discussion. No subject was too odd or obscure! 270 delightful pages, illus.

'You should have gardens where you can stroll and, on occasion, host banquets...where you can arrange rare and exotic plants with care. In these places, you can especially appreciate the careful arrangement of myrtle, boxwood, citrus trees and rosemary...' Giovanni Pontano (1494). Biblical paradise on earth, here are holy figures and flowers from The Spinola Hours, the Flemish glorious colour illumination on the borders of a prayer book. Here are gardens in life and literature, trellised arches woven with flowers and grapes decorating the borders of images in these books of hours and laypersons' private prayer books. Red flowers are likely the rose campion, associated with the Crucifixion. Dreaming of Gardens sees the Romance of the Rose, an allegorical, chivalric poem that celebrates the mythical garden of Love, with illuminated copies featuring a variety of scenes that took place inside and outside the garden walls. The chapter on Villas, Châteaux and Courtly Spaces shows the illumination of the natural world and the Model Book of Calligraphy where the illustrations rival the script in beauty and complexity. Painted with spellbinding precision, we appreciate the pink and yellow striped tulip by Joris Hoefnagel whose highly accurate illuminations preserved a floral record of species from as far away as modern-day Turkey and Peru. Here are garden peas to lantern plants and rare gems like a European flower called Herb Robert. A beautifully produced J. Paul Getty Museum publication with glossy pages and dripping with colour throughout, 78 large pages.

Heroic though of lowly status, Gladiators fought vicious duals in large arenas filled with baying crowds and were the celebrities of their day. The survivor could either be executed (the famous 'thumbs down' signal) or spared at the whim of the crowd or the Emperor. Few lasted more than a dozen fights, yet they were a valuable asset to their owners. But how did they fight, how did their weapons and techniques develop, and who were they? This superb Casemate Short History introductory series provides an entertaining overview of the history of the Gladiator, debunking some myths along the way. We learn about the different forms of combat, and the pairings which were designed to carefully balance the strengths and weaknesses of one against the other. The retiarii (with nets) were lightly armed but mobile, the secutores and murmillones protected but were weighted down by their armour. Gladiators also participated in simulated naval battles on large artificial lakes or even sets inside the arena of the Colosseum. Although their lives were brutal and short, Gladiators were often admired for their bravery, endurance and willingness to die. Men who fought each other were not the only type of Gladiator. Being torn apart by wild animals was yet another form of entertainment provided for the crowd. Those who fought wild animals (bestiarii) or participated in hunts in the arena (venatores) are recorded in sculpted reliefs, equipped as Gladiators and locked in combat with big cats. Those who fought each other were usually condemned criminals or prisoners of war, expected to fight enthusiastically, usually in recreations of great battles from the past complete with scenery. Other gory scenes of death included the paegnarii who fought each other with sticks, or the andabatae who duelled or attempted to do so in helmets with no eye holes! With useful timeline, illus. plus line art and evidence from contemporary literature, ancient remains, graffiti and the multiple skeletons which tell their story. 160 page illustrated paperback.

Originally warriors mounted on horseback, knights became associated with the concept of chivalry as it was popularised in medieval European literature. They were expected to fight bravely and honourably and be loyal to their lord until death if necessary. Later, chivalry came to encompass activities such as tournaments and hunting, and virtues including justice, charity and faith. The Crusades were instrumental in the development of the code of chivalry, and some crusading orders of knighthoods such as the Knights Templar have become legend. By the 15th century, advances in warfare had rendered knights obsolete, but the 'knight' had survived as an honorary title granted for services to a monarch or country, and remains an icon of popular culture. Chapter headings include 1066 and All That, Kingdom of Heaven, Longshanks, Braveheart, St Crispin's Day, Game of Thrones and Ivanhoe. The historical roots of chivalry lie in a mist-shrouded Teutonic past, sanctioned and effectively annexed by the church. The knighthood provided a core philosophy and set values that, while no means always adhered to, furnished the mystique. This ideology, combined with long years of training and expensive equipment, permitted the mounted knight to maintain his elite and largely unchallenged status as arbiter on the battlefield. Military service was bound into the mesh of feudalism. An intriguing Casemate Short History, 160pp illustrated paperback.

The author has written more than 30 books on maritime history and this glorious 2015 first edition from Seaforth Publishing was written when Victory was awaiting massive restoration on her hull, slowly being crushed by its own weight. This work brings to the fore the significance of her career so far, and is an eloquent testimonial to her remarkable survival. She first took to the water in May 1765, and was almost wrecked on her launch. Diplomacy conducted onboard her played a crucial role in provoking Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. In 1914 Kaiser Wilhelm set the First World War in motion at a desk made from Victory's timbers. Lavery's book also tells the story of Horatio Nelson, who was born a few weeks before his most famous ship was ordered, and whose career paralleled her in many ways. Of course he does not ignore the Battle of Trafalgar and indeed offers new insights into the campaign that led up to it. Victory was at different times a flagship, a fighting ship, a prison hospital ship, a training ship for officers and boys, a floating courtroom, a signal school in the early days of radio, tourist attraction and national icon. Lavery looks at her through many eyes including those of Queen Victoria, admirals, midshipmen and ordinary seamen, and even Beatrix Potter who visited as a girl. Victory literally collided with the modern age in 1903 when she was hit by the battleship Neptune. In 1922 she entered dry dock to become a pioneering preserved ship, and survived despite being hit by a German bomb. The book also deals with her designers, the dockyard workers who built her, and the thousands of men and boys who sailed, fought or trained on board her. Admire the beautiful oak from which she is built, the magnificent golden windows of her curved bow and dozens of beautiful colour paintings, contemporary colour photos, diagrams, maps and cartoons in this big glamorous 22.9 x 27cm 208 page tribute.

Drama, comedy and tragedy in this, the second edition concerning the best-attested generation of Roman writers and the community around Cicero in the period from 50BCE when the autocratic control of Caesar as dictator forced the old elite out of politics and stimulated its intellectuals to new writing in the prose genres of historiography, antiquarian research, and philosophy. Cicero and Varro were the two most learned men and most voracious readers of their age who had been thoroughly educated in Greek and existing Latin literature and who wrote extensive works in several literary genres. Cicero began and made his career with court speeches but moved on to political advocacy then to dialogues and treatises on oratory and education for public life, on public science, theology and Roman history. Varro seems to have begun with lighter work - satiric usually dramatic sketches on Roman themes, then advanced to serious literary and historical research. It was enthusiasm for classical literature that led Petrarch and Boccaccio to seek out and copy texts of Cicero and Varro including informal letters. The book studies the texts of the Middle Republic, of Naevius and Ennius, Plautus and Terrance, Pacuvius, Accius and Lucilius and illustrates what happened to Roman secular literature after Apuleius and Gellius and how it was received even by committed Christian writers. The book covers nationalism, private and public patronage, the first real histories, love and elegy, Ovid the scapegoat and the sorrows of Augustus, didactic and descriptive poetry, the divergence of theatre and drama, Pliny's letters, the public world of the senator and orator, the world of the auditorium and more. And the book discusses the habits of Roman readers and their access to literature from booksellers and copyists to pirated publications and libraries. With a new Preface and updated bibliography, 340pp, illus. softback.

The leading British historian has teamed up with a gifted Brazilian artist who uses contemporary photographs as the basis for her full-colour digital renditions of poignant early 20th century photographs. The 200 unforgettable images have been retouched with realistic skin tones, filthy uniforms, the stern faces of men at the Nuremberg Rallies, a tiny little girl survivor of the bombing of Guernica, blindfolded German prisoners after the Dieppe Raid and poignant images from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising including bloodied children in striped uniforms at Auschwitz. The 200 unforgettable images are of conflicts and revolutions, key events and leading actors of the total wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45, and the civil and colonial struggles of the interwar period and the impact of these violent happenings on the lives of ordinary men and women across each of the world's continents. Each poignant picture is paired with a short explanatory text to give more context to the image and the book proceeds in a more or less chronological sequence, hard and harrowing, every single archive photograph capturing a moment in history. It is a tribute to the men and women, some heroes, some victims, who live through these terrifying times of fascism, nationalism, populism, anti-Semitism, hatred, bigotry, racism and the politics of exclusion, division and isolation. The world is fragile and it takes less than we think to set it aflame. With superb colourisation which is a delicate and technical process and reproduced in 432 very large pages in this heavyweight tome with pagemarker, 8" x 9½".
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We all know fragments of history such as Magna Carta or Henry VIII and his six wives, but how many of us can put these events into the context of what was going on at the same time throughout the world? This magnificent book from National Geographic gives the reader the full sweep of world history, starting with the arrival of humankind "Out of Africa" from 100,000 to 3500 BCE. We learn how sea levels dropped and humans were able to move from their origins in eastern Africa to Egypt, India, China, the New World, and even islands like Britain. Each chapter features an influential artefact of its era, including the Code of Hammurabi from Babylon in the second millennium BCE, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Koran, Luther's 95 theses that changed the face of Europe in the 16th century, the US constitution, Darwin's On the Origin of Species and, in our own time, the 9/11 Commission Report. The journey begins with Paintings on the Wall, a study of the world's first civilizations. It spans Lies on Parchment: The Classical Age in the Mediterranean; Living Scrolls: The Golden Age of the East; Burning Books: The Postclassical Era; Tales of Chivalry: The High Middle Ages; Secret Signatures: Exploration, Renaissance, and Reformation; The Orators: Enlightenment and Revolution; Promises for a New Century: Industry and Imperialism; Words of Anger, Regret, and Hope: The World at War; and, Divining the Future: The Modern Era. At the bottom of each page there is a timeline of major world events, and a section at the end of each chapter draws attention to roughly simultaneous occurrences, for instance the Roman emperor Trajan and the use of paper as the medium of communication in China. Throughout the book there are features on the "voices" of the period, including excerpts from letters, speeches, poetry and prose. The eighth century Chinese poet Du Fu in The Deserted Wife wrote "All things are like the puffing out of a candle", while Mary Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication of the Rights of Women, wrote that men do not rule over her "unless the reason of an individual demands my homage". Pages from the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 are reproduced, showing provisions for war graves and reparations made by Germany after World War I. There are also feature boxes giving a verdict on individuals, and each page has a "takeaway", summing up its content in a single sentence. 464pp, chronologies, timelines, colour photos on every page, feature boxes, diagrams, maps.

Sub-titled 'A New History of the People's Republic and Hong Kong', the rise of China and the fall of Hong Kong to authoritarian rule is told with unique insight in this new history, drawing on eyewitness reporting over three decades, interviews with key figures, and documents from archives in China and the West. We are swept from the earliest days of trade through the Opium Wars to the 19th century, the age of globalisation and the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China. The story ends with the battle for democracy on the city's streets and the ultimate victory of the Chinese Communist Party. How did it come to this? We learn from private papers that Margaret Thatcher anguished over the fate of Hong Kong, sought secret American briefings on how to handle China, and put her trust in an adviser who was torn between duty and pride. The deal they made with Beijing did not last. The Chinese side of this history, so often unheard, emerges from memoirs and documents, many new to the foreign reader, revealing how the party's iron will and negotiating tactics crushed its opponents. Yet the voices of Hong Kong people - eloquent, smart and bold -speak out here for ideals that refuse to die. The book tells how the People's Republic reformed its economy and changed the world, emerging to challenge the West with a new order that raises fundamental questions about progress, identity and freedom. Hong Kong continues to compete with rivals and retain advantages - its banks, finance houses and traders grease the wheels of business and invest its profits with unique freedom, its courts arbitrate commercial disputes impartially and its administrators by and large do not have their hand held out. And we are taken back to the colonial days when the thwack of cricket balls could be heard on the green and at the Royal Yacht Club the noonday gun as immortalised in Noel Coward's song 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' sounds. It is a hive of commerce - vendors of ivory, dried fish, abalone and sharks' fins, fragrant mushrooms and chests of aromatic tea, ginseng roots and the calls of porters and the babel of dialects. A delightful piece of writing and research which depicts the motives, fears and internal struggles of negotiating tactics, this is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the world in which we live. 456pp, colour photos, portraits and black and white images, maps, 2021 first edition.