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Presenting an account of mental illness in British prime ministers from Sir Robert Walpole, generally regarded as the first to hold the position, to Tony Blair, this book reveals how depression, anxiety, dementia, and alcohol or drug use disorders have impacted British leaders over three centuries. It begins with an introduction explaining the principles of diagnosis, the methods used to assess subjects and the assignment of confidence levels in each diagnosis, and the overall significance of mental disorder in political leaders. Individual assessments then follow for each of Britain's 51 prime ministers, revealing how evidence for psychiatric problems was found in over 70% of cases and how the prevalence of mental disorders remained relatively constant throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
In this pioneering new work, based on a thorough re-reading of primary sources and new research in the Austrian State Archives, Franz Szabo presents a fascinating reassessment of the continental war. Professor Szabo challenges the well-established myth that the Seven Years War was won through the military skill and tenacity of the King of Prussia, often styled Frederick “the Great”. Instead he argues that Prussia did not win, but merely survived the Seven Years War and did so despite and not because of the actions and decisions of its king. With balanced attention to all the major participants and to all conflict zones on the European continent, the book describes the strategies and tactics of the military leaders on all sides, analyzes the major battles of the war and illuminates the diplomatic, political and financial aspects of the conflict.
The untold story of how our national obsession with gardening came to be.
The Mandate of Heaven examines the first European version of Sunzi’s Art of War, which was translated from Chinese by Joseph Amiot, a French missionary in Beijing, and published in Paris in 1772. His work is presented in English for the first time. Amiot undertook this project following the suppression of the Society of Jesus in France with the aim of demonstrating the value of the China mission to the French government. He addressed his work to Henri Bertin, minister of state, beginning a thirty-year correspondence between the two men. Amiot framed his translation in order to promote a radical agenda using the Chinese doctrine of the “mandate of heaven.” This was picked up within the sinophile and radical circle of the physiocrats, who promoted China as a model for revolution in Europe. The work also arrived just as the concept of strategy was emerging in France. Thus Amiot’s Sunzi can be placed among seminal developments in European political and strategic thought on the eve of the revolutionary era.
This book focuses on the gradual deterioration of the British-American relationship that led to the American Revolution. Starting in 1721, the author explores how the relationship between Britain and America changed from one of reciprocal trust to one of mutual misunderstanding and suspicion. It analyses the impact of Britain’s changing relationship with the other great powers of Europe and discusses such matters as British concern about the national debt and French unease about Anglo-Russian cooperation. The book uniquely promotes the importance of foreign affairs in this disintegrating trans-Atlantic relationship and provides a concise introduction to the political and military aspects of the American Revolution. This volume will be of interest to students of the American Revolution, and European and American foreign relations.
2024 marks the 250th anniversary of John Wilkes becoming Lord Mayor of London. A man simultaneously full of contradiction and principles, Wilkes was a giant of eighteenth-century England and helped shape modern Britain.
The Seven Years War was a global contest between the two superpowers of eighteenth century Europe, France and Britain. Winston Churchill called it “the first World War”. Neither side could afford to lose advantage in any part of the world, and the decisive battles of the war ranged from Fort Duquesne in what is now Pittsburgh to Minorca in the Mediterranean, from Bengal to Quèbec. By its end British power in North America and India had been consolidated and the foundations of Empire laid, yet at the time both sides saw it primarily as a struggle for security, power and influence within Europe. In this eagerly awaited study, Daniel Baugh, the world’s leading authority on eighteenth cen...
This accessible collection examines twelve historic events in the international relations of East Asia.
This is a portrait of George Jacob Holyoake, the social reformer and founder of Secularism, describing his contribution to the Co-operative Movement and his connection with the workers' movement.
Herbert Butterfield (1900-1979) was an important British historian and religious thinker whose ideas, in particular his concept of a “Whig interpretation of history,” remain deeply influential. In this intellectual biography—the first comprehensive study of Butterfield—C.T. McIntire focuses on the creative processes that lay behind Butterfield’s intellectual accomplishments. Drawing on his investigations into Butterfield’s vast and diverse output of published and unpublished work, McIntire explores Butterfield’s ideas and methods. He describes Butterfield’s lifelong devotion to his Methodist faith and shows how his Christian spirituality animated his historical work. He also traces the theme of dissent that ran through Butterfield’s life and work, presenting a man who found himself at odds with prevailing convictions about history, morality, politics, religion, and teaching, a man who elevated the notion of dissent into an ethic of living in tension with any established system.