Showing results for "Mad World" in History

A terrifically engaging and original biography about one of England’s greatest novelists, and the glamorous, eccentric, debauched and ultimately tragic family that provided him with the most significant friendships of his life and inspired his masterpiece, “Brideshead Revisited”. Evelyn...

The first full-length biography of the Nobel laureate to appear in a quarter century, Mad at the World illuminates what has made the work of John Steinbeck an enduring part of the literary canon: his capacity for empathy. Angered by the plight of the Dust Bowl migrants who were starving even as they toiled to harvest California's limitless bounty and appalled by the country's refusal to recognize the humanity common to all of its citizens, Steinbeck took a stand against social injustice - paradoxically given his inherent misanthropy. 

The Austro-Hungarian army that marched east and south to confront the Russians and Serbs in the opening campaigns of World War I had a glorious past but a pitiful present. Speaking a mystifying array of languages and lugging outdated weapons, the Austrian troops were hopelessly unprepared for the industrialized warfare that would shortly consume Europe.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes can trace his lineage back to Charlemagne and he's related to Jane Austen. Eustache Fiennes fought for William the Conqueror - but other Fiennes' were on Harold's side. One of his relatives, Geoffrey de Saye, was at the signing of the Magna Carta. Thomas Fiennes sat on the...

Soldiers Don't Go Mad tells for the first time the story of the soldiers and doctors who struggled with the effects of industrial warfare on the psyche. As he investigates the roots of what we now know as PTSD, Charles Glass brings historical bearing to how we must consider war's ravaging effects on mental health, and the ways in which creative work helps us come to terms with even the darkest of times.

Shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2022 Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction The Cold War was not just a contest of power. It was also about ideas, in the broadest sense – economic and political, artistic and personal. In The Free World, the acclaimed Pulitzer...

In 1887, Nellie Bly had herself committed to the notorious Blackwell's Island insane asylum in New York City with the goal of discovering what life was like for its patients. While there, she experienced firsthand the shocking abuse and neglect of its inmates, from inedible food to horrifyingly unsanitary conditions. Ten Days in a Mad-House established Bly as a pioneering female journalist and remains a classic of investigative reporting.

I årevis har journalist Mads Brügger været besat af en gådefuld organisation ved navn Det Sydafrikanske Institut for Maritim Research (SAIMR), der tilhører Apartheid-regimets mørkeste hemmeligheder. Han har endda lavet en prisbelønnet dokumentarfilm om SAIMR (Cold Case Hammarskjöld), men det stopper ikke her. I Doktor Maxwell, formoder jeg? graver han sig endnu længere ned i kaninhullet og kommer tættere end nogensinde på sandheden om SAIMR og den mystiske og voldsparate kæderyger Keith Maxwell, der var instituttets sidst kendte leder.

Journalist Nellie Bly went undercover in 1887 to investigate an insane asylum on an assignment for New York World. After getting herself committed by acting deranged, Bly uncovered the dark truth about the asylum. Patients were fed rotten food, subject to filthy living conditions, and abused by staff. Not only was this no place for the mentally ill to find treatment, Bly discovered it was the kind of place that could drive even a perfectly sane woman off the edge.