Showing results for "The Street" in Europe

From best-selling social commentator and cultural historian Barbara Ehrenreich comes this fascinating exploration of one of humanity's oldest traditions: the celebration of communal joy, historically expressed in ecstatic revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing. Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture, showing that such mass festivities have been indigenous to the West since the ancient Greeks.

One forgotten street, 12 unforgettable women. ‘’Ang on boy, Joan’s got sumfink to show yer.’ She rummaged in a drawer for a moment, pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to me. ‘Constance Street,’ she said. ‘As I remember it.’ Through the story of one street – Constance...

In post-war Europe, protest was everywhere. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, from Paris to Prague, Milan to Wroclaw, ordinary people took to the streets, fighting for a better world. Their efforts came to a head most dramatically in 1968 and 1989, when mass movements swept Europe and rewrote its history. In the decades between, Joachim C. Häberlen argues, new movements emerged that transformed the nature of protesting.

In this classic account of the French war in Indochina, Bernard B. Fall vividly captures the sights, sounds, and smells of the savage eight-year conflict in the jungles and mountains of Southeast Asia from 1946 to 1954. The French fought well to the last, but even with the lethal advantages of airpower, they could not stave off the Communist-led Vietnamese nationalists, who countered with a hit-and-run campaign of ambushes, booby traps, and nighttime raids. Defeat came at Dien Bien Phu, in 1954, setting the stage for American involvement and opening another tragic chapter in Vietnam's history.

For hundreds of years, the City of Light has set the stage for larger-than-life characters-from medieval lovers Heloïse and Abelard to the defiant King Henri IV to the brilliant scientist Madame Curie, beloved chanteuse Edith Piaf, and the writer Colette. In this book, Susan Cahill recounts the lives of 22 famous Parisians and then takes you through the seductive streets of Paris to the quartiers where they lived and worked: the scenes of their greatest triumphs and tragedies, their favorite cafes, bars, and restaurants, and the places where they found inspiration and love.

Bow Street Magistrates Court is justly famous as the birthplace of an efficient system of summary jurisdiction. Less well-known are some of the fascinating characters who have taken part in the court's dramas over the years. Most people know of the early pioneer stipendiary magistrates Henry and John Fielding. But what of Nicholas Bond, the ambitious and devious Bow Street Runner who (under John's patronage) became a clerk of the court and later a Bow Street Magistrate?

One hot Monday morning in 1976, Albert Spaggiari engineered the European crime of the century. A bank president in Nice, France found his vault welded shut—from the inside. Spaggiari and his gang of 20 men had dug a 25-foot tunnel from the city's sewer system into the bank, where they spent a weekend cooking meals, drinking wine, and clearing millions of dollars in gold, jewelry, gems, and cash. Here is the breathtakingly compelling story of Spaggiari, his “sewer gang,” and the most daring, outrageous theft of the 20th century.

Margot Asquith was perhaps the most daring and unconventional Prime Minister's wife in British history. Known for her wit, style and habit of speaking her mind, she transformed 10 Downing Street into a glittering social and intellectual salon. Yet her last five years at Number 10 were a period...

SOHO - ILLICIT, GLAMOROUS, SORDID, LOUCHE, POVERTY-STRICKEN, SQUALID, EXHILARATING. One of Britain's best-loved historians, Dan Cruickshank grants us an intimacy with centuries of rich and varied London history as he guides us around the Soho of the last five hundred years. We learn of its...

Endgame, the explosive book from longtime royal journalist Omid Scobie and author of the international blockbuster Finding Freedom, is a penetrating investigation into the current state of the British monarchy—an unpopular king, a power-hungry heir to the throne, a queen willing to go to...

The first, epic and true story of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s life together, finally revealing why they chose to pursue a more independent path and the reasons behind their unprecedented decision to step away from their royal lives, from two top royal reporters who have been behind the...

The Black Door explores the evolving relationship between successive British prime ministers and the intelligence agencies, from Asquith’s Secret Service Bureau to Cameron’s National Security Council. Intelligence can do a prime minister’s dirty work. For more than a century, secret wars...

The hotly anticipated final book of bestselling author Tim Shipman’s Brexit quartet. The Johnson Years to Rishi Sunak 'Magnificent… Pacy and packed with delicious details… Shipman puts you in the room… His analysis is sharp and full of insight… For those seeking a moment-by-moment...

When Miranda Sawyer interviewed Liam Gallagher in 1994, his gag wishing Damon Albarn would die of AIDS became front-page news all over the world. This fascinating pop history, exploring the moment British music suddenly meant everything, explains why. Picking out twenty key songs, delving into the surprising stories behind them and their unlikely creators, UNCOMMON PEOPLE takes us back to when Jarvis Cocker became a national hero, films like Trainspotting were international hits, rave became what everybody did - and it felt like the revolution was happening.

THE BESTSELLING BIOGRAPHY OF THE BRITISH PRIME MINISTER A Times Book of the Year; A Telegraph Book of the Year; A Daily Mail Book of the Year; A Waterstones Book of the Year ‘Required reading for anyone who has an interest in who governs Britain' ALASTAIR CAMPBELL 'This will be the most...

A riveting glimpse of life and love during and after World War II—a heart-warming, touching, and thoroughly absorbing true story of a world gone by. In the spring of 1939, with the Second World War looming, two determined twenty-four-year-olds, Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver, decided to open a...

The first full-length biography of Mal Evans, the Beatles’ beloved friend, confidant, and roadie. Malcolm Evans, the Beatles’ long-time roadie, personal assistant, and devoted friend, was an invaluable member of the band’s inner circle. A towering figure in horn-rimmed glasses, Evans...

London, 1857: Two teenage girls holding a sign that says "Fugitive Slaves" ask for money on the corner of Blackman Street. After a constable accosts them and charges them with begging, they end up in court, where newspapers pick up their story. Are the girls truly escaped slaves from Kentucky? Or will the city's dystopian Mendicity Society catch them in a lie, exposing them as born-and-raised Londoners and endangering their safety? With its many accounts of people like these who lived and made their living on the streets, Vagabonds forms a moving picture of London's most compelling period.

Few outside the security services have heard of 14 Company. As deadly as the SAS yet more secret, the operators of 14 Company are Britain's most effective weapon against international terrorism. For every bomb that goes off, 14 Company prevent 12. The selection process is the most physically, intellectually, and emotionally demanding anywhere in the world. This is the true story of one operator and of some of the most hair-raising military operations ever conducted on the streets of Britain.

'Lively . . . peppered with entertaining lines. One of [Low's] skills as a journalist is an ability to sift through mountains of archive material and pick out the gems' - Telegraph Covering 200 years of royal history from Queen Victoria to King Charles, and looking forward to the future reign of...