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Beloved as the family storyteller, Dorothy Winthrop Bradford left behind at her death in 1987 diaries, letters, scrapbooks and memorabilia that date back to the Civil War and provide a picture of a way of life long gone - of a period when leisure time was plentiful and cars were few, when her hometown of Hamilton, Massachusetts was open country and Boston a closed society. These materials provide an intimate view of the vanished lifestyle of the upper classes between the two world wars. At the heart of the story is Dorothy Bradford's own life, and the 82 years she spent in the small town where she was born. It was a life, however, set against the vast canvas of her extened family, whose stor...
In 1831, Chopin stopped in Paris on his way to London, fleeing his native Warsaw after Russia's brutal repression of an insurrection there. Entranced by the lively social and artistic scene in the city, the musician remained there until his death in 1849. In this engaging book, William Atwood recreates the Paris that Chopin knew, providing vivid details about its places, people, and politics, and showing how these affected the sensitive musician during an enormously fruitful period in his career. Drawing on many contemporary sources, Atwood brings to life the musicians, writers, artists, courtesans, salon hostesses, politicians, doctors, businessmen, and messianic Polish emigres who lived in Paris. He describes the theaters, music halls, and salons of Paris as well as its less glamorous worlds filled with the political conflicts and economic fluctuations of the July Monarchy. He tells about the city's newly awakened social consciousness and the philosophers and writers (including George Sand) who fostered it. The book sheds brilliant new light on both Paris and Chopin and will be delightful reading for lovers of the city or the musician.
Ambushes and surprise attacks are tactics as old as warfare itself. This instructive and interesting book, written by a distinguished Victorian soldier and military historian, describes and analyses some of history's most famous military ambushes - including Hannibal's waylaying of the Romans on the shores of Lake Trasimene; the other great disaster to Roman arms when the Legions were lured to their doom by the Teutonic tribes of Germanicus in the Teutoburg Forest; from the Age of Charlemagne Malleson tells the story of Roland and Oliver’s doomed stand against the Moors at Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees. Other surprises and ambushes recounted in the book include Marshal Massena’s campaign of 1799 around the St Gothard Pass in the Swiss Alps, and France’s successful ambush of Braddock’s British force iun the North American wilderness at Fort Duquesne. Each account is illustrated by a map, making this a most illuminating as well and an highly entertaining, read.