Showing results for "Julia" in Europe

In the first volume of this epic new series, Alison Weir strips away centuries of romantic mythology and prejudice to reveal the lives of England's queens in the century after the Norman Conquest. Beginning with Matilda of Flanders, who supported William the Conqueror in 1066, to the turbulent life of the Empress Maud, who claimed to be queen of England in her own right and fought a bitter war to that end, the five Norman queens emerge as hugely influential figures and fascinating characters.

The story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn is one of the most remarkable in history: a long courtship followed by a shotgun wedding and then a coronation, ending just short of three years later when a husband’s passion turned to such hatred that he simply wanted his wife gone. Missing from most accounts is how the turbulent nature of Anne and Henry’s relationship was tied almost completely to the major events of international politics at one of the great turning points of British and European history. This was a marriage that convulsed not just a nation, but a whole continent.

Travellers in the Third Reich is an extraordinary history of the rise of the Nazis based on fascinating firsthand accounts, drawing together a multitude of voices and stories, including students, politicians, musicians, diplomats, schoolchildren, communists, scholars, athletes, poets, journalists, fascists, artists, tourists, even celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and Samuel Beckett. Their experiences create a remarkable three-dimensional picture of Germany under Hitler - one so palpable that the listener will feel, hear, even breathe the atmosphere.

The NHS is at crisis point. In the 75 years since it was founded on the dream of making healthcare accessible to everyone, its principles have been chipped away at and disregarded by successive political leaders.

Love and Louis XIV centres around the Sun King and his relationships with numerous fascinating women: his mother, Anne of Austria, to whom he was devoted; his first important mistress, Louise de la Valliere, who bore him several illegitimate children; Athenais Marquise de Montespan, who acted as unofficial Queen of Versailles; Madame de Maintenon, governess to the illegitimate royal children; and of course, Marie Therese, his wife.

Queen Victoria, a woman of diminutive stature and superabundant temperament, gave her name to something more than an age. Elizabeth Longford's classic biography won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize when it was first published in 1964. The author's grasp of the era's politics, and her understanding of the problems which confront a woman who is not only a queen but also a mother of a large high-spirited family, make this audiobook unique to this day.

The newly-wed Anne Hastings faced her husband's wrath when her affair with William Compton was made public. Mary Tudor married to satisfy her brother's political need to ally with France, but when her decrepit royal husband died, she married the dashing Charles Brandon for love. William Parr, humiliated by his wife's extramarital affair, sought a divorce to marry the woman he loved.

She was far more than mistress to the king; Henrietta Howard was a dedicated patron of the arts, a lively and talented intellectual, and a passionate advocate for the rights of women long before the dawn of feminism. The mark that this enigmatic royal mistress left on the society and culture of early Georgian England was to resonate well beyond the confines of the court, and can still be felt today.

Commissioned in 1750, the Palazzo Venier was planned as a testimony to the power and wealth of a great Venetian family, but the fortunes of the Venier family waned, and the project was left abandoned and unfinished. Yet in the early 20th century, it attracted three fascinating women: Luisa Casati, Doris Castlerosse and Peggy Guggenheim.

The history of the Spitfire contains many hitherto hidden or little-known stories of the men and women behind the plane - not only the gifted creators and inventors who brought the Spitfire to life or the brave fighter pilots from many countries who triumphed in battle but also the thousands of other people whose lives were affected by their personal connection to it - engineers, ground crew, factory or office workers, and their families. Spitfire Stories recounts the memories and stories of these people, from the birth of the iconic Spitfire in the 1930s to the present day.

What has 'Roman Britain' meant to the British people since the Romans left? And what does Roman Britain mean to us now? How has it been reimagined, in story and song and verse? Charlotte Higgins leads us through the history, and by using some of Britain's most intriguing ancient monuments, Under Another Sky invites us to see the British landscape, and history, in an entirely fresh way.

Irish singing star Daniel O'Donnell's mother, Julia, grew up on a remote island off the northwest coast of Ireland, going barefoot and doing hard labour as a child during the poverty-stricken 1920s. The hard work continued through her teenage years as she picked potatoes in the fields and travelled to Scotland to gut fish in the ports. After she married and settled in Kincasslagh, Julia's beloved husband, Francie, was forced to leave his family for months on end to work on farms, again in Scotland.

Philip Walsingham Sergeant's biography of Barbara from 1912 draws on contemporary writings to tell her story, giving a more vivid and faithful presentation of the spirit of the time. He traces her life from her early girlhood, through her time at Court, her exile, and ending with her involvement in a bigamy trial.

¿Fue el siglo xx de España una excepción entre las naciones europeas? Con esta pregunta, y un intento de respuesta, comienza esta colección de ensayos que abarca desde el desastre del 98 a los sucesivos momentos de la profunda crisis de Estado en la que todavía andamos inmersos. Santos Juliá traza aquí un recorrido por cien años y algo más de nuestra historia en busca de la diferencia española, las propuestas de europeización, el momento en que se torció una posible transición del liberalismo a la democracia...

From southern Greece to northern Russia, people have long believed in female spirits, bringers of fertility, who spend their nights and days dancing in the fields and forests. So appealing were these spirit-maidens that they also took up residence in 19th-century Romantic literature. Archaeologist and linguist by profession, folk dancer by avocation, Elizabeth Wayland Barber has sleuthed through ethnographic lore and archaeological reports of east and southeast Europe, translating enchanting folktales about these "dancing goddesses" as well as eyewitness accounts of traditional rituals - texts that offer new perspectives on dance in agrarian society.

An informative and entertaining look at royal weddings through English history. The excitement surrounding the marriage of Prince William to Kate Middleton has prompted four of Britain's top historical biographers to look closely at Royal Weddings.

Kiedy ukraińska dziennikarka Julia Mendel otrzymała telefon z propozycją pracy dla prezydenta Wołodymyra Zełenskiego, nie miała pojęcia, co ją czeka. W swojej szczerej i poruszającej relacji była rzeczniczka prasowa Zełenskiego opowiada historię jego nieprawdopodobnej kariery od popularnego komika do prezydenta Ukrainy. I to z najbliższej perspektywy. Jako świadek siedzący w pierwszym rzędzie Mendel uczestniczyła w wielu kluczowych wydarzeniach poprzedzających rosyjską inwazję w 2022 r.

Sie faszinieren uns noch heute: trutzige Ritterburgen und prächtige Königsresidenzen. Doch wie gestaltete sich das Leben am Hofe wirklich...

Nichts hat das Mittelalter so geprägt wie das Christentum - alle Bereiche des Lebens wurden von einem übermächtigen Glauben bestimmt...

Das mittelalterliche Leben in der Stadt unterschied sich grundlegend von dem auf dem Land...