The Confident Hope Of A Miracle

Author : Neil Hanson
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307428303
Total Pages : 514 pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Confident Hope of a Miracle written by Neil Hanson and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The real story of the Spanish Armada. In the winter of 1587 the Spanish Armada, the largest force of warships ever assembled, set sail to crush the English navy. This breathtaking overview of one of the most fascinating campaigns in European history begins with the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, the event that precipitated the launching of the Armada. From the first whispers of the threat against England and the English crown, to the return of the battered remnants of the fleet to Spain eighteen months later, it is a story rich in incident and intrigue. In this controversial study, Neil Hanson claims that Francis Drake’s intention was not to sink the Armada ships but to disable and plunder them. He further claims that Queen Elizabeth was a monarch who left many of the survivors of the battle to die of disease or starvation and whose parsimony, prevarication and cynicism left her unable to make crucial decisions. Drawing on previously undiscovered personal papers, Neil Hanson conveys in vivid detail how the highest and the lowest in the land fared in those turbulent months when the destiny of all Europe hung in the balance. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Author : Julie Yip-Williams
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0525511369
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Unwinding of the Miracle written by Julie Yip-Williams and published by Random House. This book was released on 2019-02-05 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today • As a young mother facing a terminal diagnosis, Julie Yip-Williams began to write her story, a story like no other. What began as the chronicle of an imminent and early death became something much more—a powerful exhortation to the living. “An exquisitely moving portrait of the daily stuff of life.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • Real Simple • Good Housekeeping That Julie Yip-Williams survived infancy was a miracle. Born blind in Vietnam, she narrowly escaped euthanasia at the hands of her grandmother, only to flee with her family the political upheaval of her country in the late 1970s. Loaded into a rickety boat with three hundred other refugees, Julie made it to Hong Kong and, ultimately, America, where a surgeon at UCLA gave her partial sight. She would go on to become a Harvard-educated lawyer, with a husband, a family, and a life she had once assumed would be impossible. Then, at age thirty-seven, with two little girls at home, Julie was diagnosed with terminal metastatic colon cancer, and a different journey began. The Unwinding of the Miracle is the story of a vigorous life refracted through the prism of imminent death. When she was first diagnosed, Julie Yip-Williams sought clarity and guidance through the experience and, finding none, began to write her way through it—a chronicle that grew beyond her imagining. Motherhood, marriage, the immigrant experience, ambition, love, wanderlust, tennis, fortune-tellers, grief, reincarnation, jealousy, comfort, pain, the marvel of the body in full rebellion—this book is as sprawling and majestic as the life it records. It is inspiring and instructive, delightful and shattering. It is a book of indelible moments, seared deep—an incomparable guide to living vividly by facing hard truths consciously. With humor, bracing honesty, and the cleansing power of well-deployed anger, Julie Yip-Williams set the stage for her lasting legacy and one final miracle: the story of her life. Praise for The Unwinding of the Miracle “Everything worth understanding and holding on to is in this book. . . . A miracle indeed.”—Kelly Corrigan, New York Times bestselling author “A beautifully written, moving, and compassionate chronicle that deserves to be read and absorbed widely.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies

Author : David P. Barash
Publisher : SAGE Publications
ISBN 13 : 1506344240
Total Pages : 875 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Peace and Conflict Studies written by David P. Barash and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2016-12-29 with total page 875 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thoroughly updated Fourth Edition of the gold standard text explores historical and current topics in today’s rapidly changing world to provide a comprehensive introduction to peace and conflict studies. Authors David P. Barash and Charles P. Webel offer an insightful analysis of 21st-century global affairs, including such timely topics as ISIS, the nature of violence and nonviolence, cutting-edge military technologies, the Terrorism and Global Peace Indexes, and the latest developments in Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Comprehensive yet written in a student-friendly and accessible style, the text represents a commitment to inspire readers to create a better world through an understanding of what has happened and what is happening, and therefore what is likely to take place in the future.

Author : James Davey
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 147295677X
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Tudor and Stuart Seafarers written by James Davey and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-08-09 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tudor and Stuart Seafarers tells the compelling story of how a small island positioned on the edge of Europe transformed itself into the world's leading maritime power. In 1485, England was an inward-looking country, its priorities largely domestic and European. Over the subsequent two centuries, however, this country was transformed, as the people of the British Isles turned to the sea in search of adventure, wealth and rule. Explorers voyaged into unknown regions of the world, while merchants, following in their wake, established lucrative trade routes with the furthest reaches of the globe. At home, people across Britain increasingly engaged with the sea, whether through their own lived experiences or through songs, prose and countless other forms of material culture. This exquisitely illustrated book delves into a tale of exploration, encounter, adventure, power, wealth and conflict. Topics include the exploration of the Americas, the growth of worldwide trade, piracy and privateering and the defeat of the Spanish Armada, brought to life through a variety of personalities from the well-known – Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Drake and Samuel Pepys – to the ordinary sailors, dockyard workers and their wives and families whose lives were so dramatically shaped by the sea.

Author : Des Ekin
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1681770962
Total Pages : 488 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Last Armada written by Des Ekin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-01-15 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the last great naval battle between England and Spain, evoking a number of colorful and dangerous personalities who fought in the climactic conclusion to these two countries’ great rivalry on the sea. Ireland: Christmas Eve, 1601. As thunder crashes and lightning rakes the sky, three very different commanders line up for a battle that will decide the fate of a nation. General Juan del Águila has been sprung from a prison cell to command the last great Spanish armada. His mission: to seize a bridgehead in Queen Elizabeth's England and hold it. Facing him is Charles Blount, a brilliant English strategist whose career is also under a cloud. His affair with a married woman edged him into a treasonous conspiracy—and brought him to within a hair’s breadth of the gallows. Meanwhile, Irish insurgent Hugh O’Neill knows that this is his final chance to drive the English out of Ireland. For each man, this is the last throw of the dice. Tomorrow they will be either heroes or failures. These colorful commanders come alive in this true story of courage and endurance, of bitterness and betrayal, and of drama and intrigue at the highest levels in the courts of England and Spain.

Author : Peter Fjagesund
Publisher : Rodopi
ISBN 13 : 9401210829
Total Pages : 569 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Dream of the North written by Peter Fjagesund and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2014-05-10 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Northern Europe and North America have dominated the world stage for more than two centuries. Using a wide range of sources, this book provides the first coherent account from a multi-national perspective of the ideas and perceptions that, from the Renaissance onwards, fuelled the North’s rise to prominence, and enabled it to rival the traditional cultural and political hegemony of the South. This includes not only the fascinating conquest of the polar regions, but also the religious upheaval of the Reformation, the changing view of nature engendered by Romanticism, and, not least, the revival of ancient Nordic and Celtic culture. Finally, the book offers an indispensable historical background to current events in the Far North, where the past and the future meet in a complex web of dramatic environmental concerns, the exploitation of natural resources, and the strategies of politics and commerce.

Author : Kelly DeVries
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004164456
Total Pages : 505 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Cumulative Bibliography of Medieval Military History and Technology written by Kelly DeVries and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the second update of "A Cumulative Bibliography of Medieval Military History and Technology," which appeared in 2002. It is meant to do two things: to present references to works on medieval military history and technology not included in the first two volumes; and to present references to all books and articles published on medieval military history and technology from 2003 to 2006. These references are divided into the same categories as in the first two volumes and cover a chronological period of the same length, from late antiquity to 1648, again in order to present a more complete picture of influences on and from the Middle Ages. It also continues to cover the same geographical area as the first and second volume, in essence Europe and the Middle East, or, again, influences on and from this area. The languages of these bibliographical references reflect this geography.

Author : Alexander Gillespie
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1847318614
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A History of the Laws of War: Volume 1 written by Alexander Gillespie and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique new work of reference traces the origins of the modern laws of warfare from the earliest times to the present day. Relying on written records from as far back as 2400 BCE, and using sources ranging from the Bible to Security Council Resolutions, the author pieces together the history of a subject which is almost as old as civilisation itself. The author shows that as long as humanity has been waging wars it has also been trying to find ways of legitimising different forms of combatants and regulating the treatment of captives. This first book on warfare deals with the broad question of whether the patterns of dealing with combatants and captives have changed over the last 5,000 years, and if so, how? In terms of context, the first part of the book is about combatants and those who can 'lawfully' take part in combat. In many regards, this part of the first volume is a series of 'less than ideal' pathways. This is because in an ideal world there would be no combatants because there would be no fighting. Yet as a species we do not live in such a place or even anywhere near it, either historically or in contemporary times. This being so, a second-best alternative has been to attempt to control the size of military forces and, therefore, the bloodshed. This is also not the case by which humanity has worked over the previous centuries. Rather, the clear assumption for thousands of years has been that authorities are allowed to build the size of their armed forces as large as they wish. The restraints that have been applied are in terms of the quality and methods by which combatants are taken. The considerations pertain to questions of biology such as age and sex, geographical considerations such as nationality, and the multiple nuances of informal or formal combatants. These questions have also overlapped with ones of compulsion and whether citizens within a country can be compelled to fight without their consent. Accordingly, for the previous 3,000 years, the question has not been whether there should be a limit on the number of soldiers, but rather who is or is not a lawful combatant. It has rarely been a question of numbers. It has been, and remains, one of type. The second part of this book is about people, typically combatants, captured in battle. It is about what happens to their status as prisoners, about the possibilities of torture, assistance if they are wounded and what happens to their remains should they be killed and their bodies fall into enemy hands. The theme that ties all of these considerations together is that all of the acts befall those who are, to one degree or another, captives of their enemies. As such, they are no longer masters of their own fate. As a work of reference this first volume, as part of a set of three, is unrivalled, and will be of immense benefit to scholars and practitioners researching and advising on the laws of warfare. It also tells a story which throws fascinating new light on the history of international law and on the history of warfare itself.

Author : Max Boot
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 9781592402229
Total Pages : 664 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

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Download or read book War Made New written by Max Boot and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An analysis of the pivotal role of technology in modern warfare focuses on four historical periods that shaped the rise and fall of empires, in a narrative account that covers such topics as gunpowder, the Industrial Revolution, and stealth aircraft. First serial, American Heritage.

Author : Benton Rain Patterson
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1466858842
Total Pages : 458 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book With the Heart of a King written by Benton Rain Patterson and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2013-12-03 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philip II of Spain, the most powerful monarch in sixteenth-century Europe and a ferocious empire-builder, was matched against the dauntless queen of England, Elizabeth I, determined to defend her country and thwart Philip's ambitions. Philip had been king of England while married to Elizabeth's half-sister, Bloody Mary Tudor, a devout Catholic. After Mary's untimely death, he courted Elizabeth, the new queen, and proposed marriage to her, hoping to build a permanent alliance between his country and hers and return England to the Catholic fold. Lukewarm to the Spanish alliance and resolute against a counterreformation, Elizabeth declined his proposal. When under her guidance England's maritime power grew to challenge Spain's rule of the sea and threaten its rich commerce, Philip became obsessed with the idea of a conquest of England and the restoration of Catholicism there, by fire and sword. Elizabeth—bold, brilliant, defiantly Protestant—became his worst enemy. In 1586 Philip began assembling the mighty Spanish Armada, and in May 1588 it sailed from Lisbon. With superior seamanship and strategies, Elizabeth's navy defeated and drove off the Spanish fleet. Forced to retreat around the northern coast of Ireland and Scotland, Philip's ships ran into violent storms that wreaked havoc. It was the rivalry's climactic event.