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This is the first major study of a neglected yet extremely significant subject: the London middle classes in the period between 1660 and 1730, a period in which they created a society and economy that can be seen with hindsight to have ushered in the modern world. Using a wealth of material from contemporary sources--including wills, business papers, inventories, marriage contracts, divorce hearings, and the writings of Daniel Defoe and Samuel Pepys--Peter Earle presents a fully rounded picture of the "middling sort of people," getting to the hearts of their lives as men and women struggling for success in the biggest, richest, and most middle-class city in contemporary Europe. He examines i...
Investigating the fascination pirates hold over the popular imagination, Peter Earle takes the fable of ocean-going Robin Hoods sailing under the "banner of King Death" and contrasts it with the murderous reality of robbery, torture and death and the freedom of a short, violent life on the high seas. The Pirate Wars charts 250 years of piracy, from Cornwall to the Caribbean, from the 16th century to the hanging of the last pirate captain in Boston in 1835. Along the way, we meet characters like Captain Thomas Cocklyn, chosen as commander of his ship "on account of his brutality and ignorance," and Edward Teach, the notorious "Blackbeard," who felt of his crew "that if he did not now and then kill one of them they would forget who he was." Using material from British Admiralty records, this is an account of the Golden Age of pirates and of the men of the legitimate navies of the world charged with the task of finally bringing these cutthroats to justice.
The book personalizes the history of Liverpool during its rise to prominence as a port by focussing on the activities of three generations of one very successful merchant family.
This is a vivid social and economic history of the lives of English merchant seamen in the 17th and 18th centuries, a period during which England rose to dominance in global commerce and became the greatest naval power in the world. Drawing on primary documents, public records, and private memoirs, acclaimed historian Peter Earle explores every aspect of the sailor's life: conditions of service, wealth and possessions, life aboard ship, the perils of the sea, discipline and punishment, sickness, desertion, mutiny and mortality, and the role of the sailor in times of war. Evocative, scholarly, and colorful, this story of England's "bravest and boldest" reveals how life on the waves was not all storms and conflict, tyranny and revolt, but also one of comradeship, adventure, and "the wonder how any can be such a lubber to stay on land."
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"Monmouth Rebellion, also known as The Revolt of the West or The West Country rebellion, was an attempt to overthrow James II, who had become King of England, Scotland and Ireland upon the death of his elder brother Charles II on 6 February 1685. James II was a Roman Catholic, and some Protestants under his rule opposed his kingship. James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II, claimed to be rightful heir to the throne and attempted to displace James II."--Wikipedia.
The five McNeice children lived a conventional life in the Cotstwolds until, in l995, their mother Kate, a biologist, seized the opportunity to go and study lions in Botswana. Travers, Emily and Angus, the three middle children, take it in turns to recount their adventures in the Okavango Delta, one of the most beautiful wildernesses on earth, where they must quickly learn to fetch water, dig their own toilet, and discover which creepy-crawlies can kill them. In a Land Rover sometimes driven by 12-year-old Travers, they track prides of lions across hundreds of miles of bush. Their classroom an open hut, they take scientific notes and record their observations of the wild life around them - zebra, giraffe, elephant, impala and much more. Written with a wonderful vividness and immediacy, this is a fascinating book for all animal-lovers, enhanced by colour photographs.
Almost no one knew what a potato was in 1500. Today they are the world's fourth most important food. How did this happen?