The Mespot Letters Of A Cotswold Soldier

Download or read book Land Between the Rivers written by Bartle Bull and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2024-09-10 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The epic, five millennia history of the region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that was the birthplace of civilization and remains today the essential crossroads between East and West At the start of the fourth millennium BC, at the edge of historical time, civilization first arrived with the advent of cities and the invention of writing that began to replace legend with history. This occurred on the floodplains of southern Iraq where the great rivers Tigris and Euphrates meet the Persian Gulf. By 3000 BC, a city called Uruk (from which “Iraq” is derived) had 80,000 residents. Indeed, as Bartle Bull reveals in his magisterial history, “if one divides the 5,000 years of human civilization into ten periods of five centuries each, during the first nine of these the world’s leading city was in one of the three regions of current day Iraq”—or to use its Greek name, Mesopotamia. Inspired by extensive reporting from the region to spend a decade delving deep into its history, Bull chronicles the story of Iraq from the exploits of Gilgamesh (almost certainly an historical figure) to the fall of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958 that ushered in its familiar modern era. The land between the rivers has been the melting pot and battleground of countless outsiders, from the Akkadians of Hammurabi and the Greeks of Alexander to the Ottomans of Suleiman the Magnificent. Here, by the waters of Babylon, Judaism was born and the Sunni-Shia schism took its bloody shape. Central themes play out over the millennia: humanity’s need for freedom versus the co-eternal urge of tyranny; the ever-present conflict and cross-fertilization of East and West with Iraq so often the hinge. We tend to view today’s tensions in the Middle East through the prism of the last hundred years since the Treaty of Versailles imposed a controversial realignment of its borders. Bartle Bull’s remarkable, sweeping achievement reminds us that the region defined by the land between the rivers has for five millennia played a uniquely central role on the global stage.

Download or read book The Fall of the Ottomans written by Eugene Rogan and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2015-03-10 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A remarkably readable, judicious and well-researched account" (Financial Times) of World War I in the Middle East By 1914 the powers of Europe were sliding inexorably toward war, and they pulled the Middle East along with them into one of the most destructive conflicts in human history. In The Fall of the Ottomans, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to vivid life, uncovering the often ignored story of the region's crucial role in the conflict. Unlike the static killing fields of the Western Front, the war in the Middle East was fast-moving and unpredictable, with the Turks inflicting decisive defeats on the Entente in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and Gaza before the tide of battle turned in the Allies' favor. The postwar settlement led to the partition of Ottoman lands, laying the groundwork for the ongoing conflicts that continue to plague the modern Arab world. A sweeping narrative of battles and political intrigue from Gallipoli to Arabia, The Fall of the Ottomans is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the Great War and the making of the modern Middle East.

Download or read book The Contemporary Review written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Well of Loneliness written by Radclyffe Hall and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2015-04-24 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This early work by Radclyffe Hall was originally published in 1928 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Well of Loneliness' is a novel that follows an upper-class Englishwoman who falls in love with another woman while serving as an ambulance driver in World War I. Marguerite Radclyffe Hall was born on 12th August 1880, in Bournemouth, England. Hall's first novel The Unlit Lamp (1924) was a lengthy and grim tale that proved hard to sell. It was only published following the success of the much lighter social comedy The Forge (1924), which made the best-seller list of John O'London's Weekly. Hall is a key figure in lesbian literature for her novel The Well of Loneliness (1928). This is her only work with overt lesbian themes and tells the story of the life of a masculine lesbian named Stephen Gordon.

Download or read book The Three Hostages written by John Buchan and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2015-04-24 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fourth of the five Richard Hannay novels by John Buchan. Here we find our hero Richard Hannay living a quiet life in the countryside with a wife and young child but his past comes back to haunt him and he once more must face up to an arch-enemy.

Download or read book Biographical Dictionary of British Generals of the Second World War written by Nicholas Smart and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2005-10-19 with total page 733 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The six years of prolonged world-wide conflict spawned some 340 serving generals in the British Army. A number are household names (Montgomery, Slim, Wavell) and others well known to historians (Horrocks, Dempsey, Leese). But the vast majority are forgotten except by their families and regiments. Yet there were a number of extraordinary characters, ranging from highly competent to downright inadequate. The Author has researched and written entries on all, varying in length, according to the subjects importance.

Download or read book A God in Every Stone written by Kamila Shamsie and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning new novel from the Granta Best of Young British, Orange shortlisted author of Burnt Shadows