For most people giving up the day job & moving to a beautiful area of France & living off the vines is an impossible but delicious dream. In 1990, Patricia Atkinson & her husband decided to sell up in Britain & emigrate to the Dordogne. Their idea was to buy a house with a few vines attached & employ someone to tend to the wine while they earned their living with some financial consultancy work. There followed a series of disasters: the stock market crashed leaving their small holding as their sole source of income; the first red wine harvest turned to vinegar; & Patricia`s husband returned to Britain, unable to cope with the stress. He never returned. Patricia Atkinson, whose only knowledge of wine up to that moment was `that it came from a bottle` & who had not a word of French, was left to salvage their life savings form the vineyards. What follows is a remarkable story of struggle & transformation whereby her tiny 4 hectare plot has become a major estate of 21 hectares, where her Clos d` Yvigne wines have won awards & been adopted by wine merchants throughout the world & where she has been hailed as a superstar by UK wine writers. ...

THE RISE & FALL OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE covers the history of British expansion overseas from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Narrative & analysis are interwoven with revealing eyewitness"ation to provide keen insight into the minds of those involved in conquering, settling & ruling the greatest Empire the world has seen. Throughout, there are consistant themes; the search for profit & the moral misgivings it generated; domestic developments which made imperial expansion desirable; & the sense of national & personal destiny felt by the empire-builders. Spanning four centuries & six continents, James` magnificent survey examines the imperial experience & its legacy with tremendous verve. Informed, comprehensive & perceptive, it is the essential summary of the era. ` James` epic is not only a first-rate narrative, but also a penetrating portrait of the British... Having largely, if often inadvertently, selfishly or ham-fistedly, engineered the world we live in, we need the courage now to face up to our record as coolly & intelligently as Lawrence James has done`
- John Spurling, TLS
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This is a story studded with extraordinary achievements & historic moments, from the building of the pyramids & the conquest of Nubia, through Akhenaten`s religious revolution, the power & beauty of Nefertiti, the glory of Tutankhamun`s burial chamber, & the ruthlessness of Ramesses, to Alexander the Great`s invasion, & Cleopatra`s fatal entanglement with Rome. As the world`s first nation-state, the history of Ancient Egypt is above all the story of the attempt to unite a disparate realm & defend it against hostile forces from within & without. Combining grand narrative sweep with detailed knowledge of hieroglyphs & the iconography of power, Toby Wilkinson reveals Ancient Egypt in all its complexity. ...

Paul Kennedy`s classic naval history, now updated with a new introduction by the author This acclaimed book traces Britain`s rise & fall as a sea power from the Tudors to the present day. Challenging the traditional view that the British are natural `sons of the waves`, he suggests instead that the country`s fortunes as a significant maritime force have always been bound up with its economic growth. In doing so, he contributes significantly to the centuries-long debate between `continental` & `maritime` schools of strategy over Britain`s policy in times of war. Setting British naval history within a framework of national, international, economic, political & strategic considerations, he offers a fresh approach to one of the central questions in British history. A new introduction extends his analysis into the twenty-first century & reflects on current American & Chinese ambitions for naval mastery. ` Excellent & stimulating` Correlli Barnett ` The first scholar to have set the sweep of British Naval history against the background of economic history` Michael Howard, Sunday Times ` By far the best study that has ever been done on the subject.. .a sparkling & apt"ation on practically every page` Daniel A. Baugh, International History Review ` The best single-volume study of Britain & her naval past now available to us` Jon Sumida, Journal of Modern History ...

The crisis of 2008 ended the illusion of a golden era in which many people imagined that prosperity & political calm would continue to spread indefinitely. In a world now racked by slowing growth & mounting unrest, how can we discern which nations will thrive & which will fail? Shaped by prize-winning author Ruchir Sharma`s twenty-five years travelling the world, The Rise & Fall of Nations rethinks economics as a practical art. By narrowing down the thousands of factors that can shape a country`s future, it spells out ten clear rules for identifying the next big winners & losers in the global economy. Each rule looks at a nation`s political, economic, & social conditions in real time to filter out the hype & noise. ` People Matters` shows how slow population growth is eroding economic growth, & ranks nations by how well they respond. The `circle of life` describes the way cycles of political complacency & revolt fuel economic booms & bust. Amid growing tensions over inequality, ` Good Billionaires, Bad Billionaires` demonstrates how billionaire lists yield clues to which economies are most or least threatened by extreme wealth. In a period when the world is struggling with trillions of dollars in new debt, the ` Kiss of Debt` explains which nations are most likely to avert this threat or buckle under it. Together, the ten rules are instructive for anyone who wants to know which nations are most likely to rise or fall in our own time. The final chapter takes the reader on a surprising world tour of the likely winners & losers in the near future. Enlivened by Sharma`s encounters with presidents, tycoons, & villagers from Rio to Beijing, this book is a pioneering field guide to understanding our impermanent world. ...

66 million years ago the dinosaurs were wiped from the face of the earth. Today, Dr. Steve Brusatte, one of the leading scientists of a new generation of dinosaur hunters, armed with cutting edge technology, is piecing together the complete story of how the dinosaurs ruled the earth for 150 million years. The world of the dinosaurs has fascinated on book & screen for decades
- from early science fiction classics like The Lost World, to Godzilla terrorizing the streets of Tokyo, & the monsters of Jurassic Park. But what if we got it wrong? In The Rise & Fall of the Dinosaurs, top dinosaur expert Brusatte, tells the real story of how dinosaurs rose to dominate the planet. Using the fossil clues that have been gathered using state of the art technology, Brusatte follows these magnificent creatures from their beginnings in the Early Triassic period, through the Jurassic period to their final days in the Cretaceous & the legacy that they left behind. Along the way, Brusatte introduces us to modern day dinosaur hunters & gives an insight into what it`s like to be a paleontologist. The Rise & Fall of the Dinosaurs is full of thrilling accounts of some of his personal discoveries, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs, monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex, & feathered raptor dinosaurs preserved in lava from China. At a time when Homo sapiens has existed for less than 200, 000 years & we are already talking about planetary extinction, The Rise & Fall of the Dinosaurs is a timely reminder of what humans can learn from the magnificent creatures who ruled the earth before us.
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WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE Paul Kennedy`s international bestseller is a sweeping account of five hundred years of fluctuating economic muscle & military might. Kennedy`s masterwork begins in the year 1500, at a time of various great centres of power including Minh China, the Ottomans, the rising Mughal state, the nations of Europe. But it was the latter which, through competition, economic growth & better military organisation, came to dominate the globe
- until challenged later by Japan, the Soviet Union, & the United States. Now China, boosted by its own economic prowess, rises to the fore. Throughout this brilliant work, Kennedy persuasively demonstrates the interdependence of economic & military power, showing how an imbalance between the two has historically led to spectacular political disaster. Erudite & brilliantly original, The Rise & Fall of the Great Powers is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the politics of power.
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At its height Renaissance Florence was a centre of enormous wealth, power & influence. A republican city-state funded by trade & banking, its often bloody political scene was dominated by rich mercantile families, the most famous of which were the Medici. This enthralling book charts the family`s huge influence on the political, economic & cultural history of Florence. Beginning in the early 1430s with the rise of the dynasty under the near-legendary Cosimo de Medici, it moves through their golden era as patrons of some of the most remarkable artists & architects of the Renaissance, to the era of the Medici Popes & Grand Dukes, Florence`s slide into decay & bankruptcy, & the end, in 1737, of the Medici line. ...

Out of the failures of Iraq & Afghanistan, the Arab Spring & Syria, a new threat emerges. While Al Qaeda is weakened, new jihadi movements, especially ISIS, are starting to emerge. In military operations in June 2014 they were far more successful than Al Qaeda ever were, taking territory that reaches across borders &

Includes:: the city of Mosul. The reports of their military coordination & brutality are chilling. While they call for the formation of a new caliphate once again the West becomes a target. How could things have gone so badly wrong? In The Rise of Islamic State, Cockburn analyzes the reasons for the unfolding of US & the West`s greatest foreign policy debacle & the impact that it has on the war-torn & volatile Middle East.

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Beginning with the founding myths of Romulus & Remus & a succession of probably fictitious kings, Anthony Everitt charts the development of Rome from its origins as a small market town in the eighth century BC, through various forms of patrician government, up to Caesar`s victory in the Civil War that defeated the Roman Republic & paved the way for Augustus to transform republican oligarchy into imperial autocracy. Using recent archaeological evidence & historical facts, & a wealth of legend & anecdote, Everitt shows how Rome grew
- both internally, via ever more ambitious construction projects, & externally, through successful military campaigns. In doing so, he highlights some fascinating parallels between ancient Roman society & the modern world. As readable & accessible as it is authoritative & scholarly, THE RISE OF ROME is the perfect introduction to Roman history & civilization for the general reader.
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