Books Should Be Free Loyal Books Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads |
|
History Books |
---|
Book type:
Sort by:
View by:
|
By: Martha Finley (1828-1909) | |
---|---|
![]() This book continues the delightful "Elsie Dinsmore" series. Elsie's children, introduced in the previous volume, live life, grow up, and encounter various problems of their own. Additional Proof Listeners: AlaynaMay & Rachel. | |
![]() The seventh in the Elsie Dinsmore series, this book begins with the death of Elsie's beloved husband. As Elsie learns to live in widowhood, the story shifts to the lives of those most precious to her - her children and extended family. | |
![]() Book 5 of the story of Mildred Keith by Martha Finley. We join Mildred as she settles into home life as wife and mother. We also see the rest of the Keith children begin to make starts of their own - some near to home, and others far away and perhaps lost forever. The Dinsmore cousins continue to be part of the story as well. - Summary by Michelle Hannah | |
By: Mary A. Hamilton | |
---|---|
![]() In this biography for young adults, Mary A. Hamilton gives a British person’s perspective on the 16th President of the United States. A glowing tribute to “Honest Abe”, the author traces Lincoln’s ancestral roots and recounts his birth in Kentucky, his youth in Indiana, his adult life in Illinois and his years in the White House. She also provides a good background on the causes and course of the American Civil War. Hamilton is not always historically precise. For example, she erroneously names Jefferson Davis as the Southern Democratic candidate for president running against Lincoln and Douglas in 1860 rather than John C... |
By: Mary A. Hollings (1869-1926) | |
---|---|
![]() In a small space the Oxford-educated historian, Mary Hollings, provides a panoramic view of a tumultuous age. We meet Cesare Borgia and Savonarola, the universal spider, Louis XI, Henry IV, France's best-beloved king, Sweden’s wise and courageous Queen Christina, and great generals, like Albrecht von Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus. The twin ideals of imperial unity and of one true church led to two centuries of unremitting warfare from the fertile plains of Italy, through the alpine passes, across France, the Netherlands, the German states, to Poland and Bohemia... |
By: Mary Antin | |
---|---|
![]() Being a Jew in Russia at the end of the 19th century was not easy at all. Jews were persecuted because of their religion. So the Jews found comfort in their ancient traditions. When Mary Antin’s father decided that keeping to his traditions did not suit him anymore, he found no place in Russia. So he emigrated to America with his family. Life was not easy, though as a child, Mary describes life in Boston as almost perfect. A smart and dignified girl, Mary takes the good things in anything and writes her autobiography with a smile. | |
![]() An intensely personal account of the immigration experience as related by a young Jewish girl from Plotzk (a town in the government of Vitebsk, Russia). Mary Antin, with her mother, sisters, and brother, set out from Plotzk in 1894 to join their father, who had journeyed to the “Promised Land” of America three years before. Fourth class railroad cars packed to suffocation, corrupt crossing guards, luggage and persons crudely “disinfected” by German officials who feared the cholera, locked “quarantine” portside, and, finally, the steamer voyage and a famiily reunited... |
By: Mary Chesnut | |
---|---|
![]() Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, a well-educated South Carolina woman who was the wife of a Confederate general, kept extensive journals during the Civil War. Mrs. Chesnut moved in elite circles of Southern society and had a keen interest in politics. Her diary is both an important historic document and, due to her sharp wit and often irreverent attitude, a fascinating window into Southern society of the time. This recording is of the first published edition of the diary, compiled from Mrs. Chesnut's revisions of her original journals. |
By: Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915) | |
---|---|
![]() It is the Christmas season once again and things are, well, boring for the adults at Penlyon Castle. "...if somehow or other I had a pack of children belonging to me, I would keep Christmas with the best — keep it as it ought to be kept." says Sir John. His good friend Mr. Danby has the perfect solution - to hire some children to spend Christmas! Thus, the arrival of Lassie, Laddie, and little Moppet - Christmas and Sir John may never be the same again. Proof Listener - hallejk | |
![]() "He was a stranger in Matcham, a 'foreigner' as the villagers called such alien visitors. He had never been in the village before, knew nothing of its inhabitants or its surroundings, its customs, ways, local prejudices, produce, trade, scandals, hates, loves, subserviencies, gods, or devils , and yet henceforward he was to be closely allied with Matcham, for a certain bachelor uncle had lately died and left him a small estate within a mile of the village." |
By: Mary Hazel Snuff | |
---|---|
![]() Housing, Food, Clothing, Health, Sanitation, Recreation, Religion, Duties, Discipline. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of arts in history in the Graduate School of the University of Illinois 1918. - Summary by David Wales |
By: Mary Hazelton Blanchard Wade (1860-1936) | |
---|---|
![]() This delightful little book is one of many titles in The Little Cousin Series. The author narrates details in the life of a fictional Russian girl named Petrovna. In doing so she introduces children to Russian life and culture at the turn of the 20th century. - Summary by Marie Christian |
By: Mary Huestis Pengilly | |
---|---|
![]() Mary Pengilly was taken to a Lunatic Asylum by her sons where she kept a diary, which this book is taken from. Mary records the harsh conditions and treatments received at the hands of the nurses during her stay. Once Mary is released she takes it upon herself to make the authorities aware of the situation at the Provincial Lunatic Asylum. |
By: Mary Hunter Austin (1868-1934) | |
---|---|
![]() The Land of Little Rain is a book of sketches which portray the high desert country of southern California, where the Sierras descend into the Mojave Desert. Mary Austin finds beauty in the harsh landscape: "This is the sense of the desert hills--that there is room enough and time enough. . . The treeless spaces uncramp the soul." Her story begins with the water trails that lead toward the few life giving springs--the way marked for men by ancient Indian pictographs. Life and death play out at these springs... |
By: Mary Johnston (1870-1936) | |
---|---|
![]() When I first started reading this book, I thought it to be a historical romance novel. As I read further, I pondered whether it might be a sea-faring story. Reading still further, I determined it to be an adventure story. Alas, it is all three. To Have And To Hold, written by Mary Johnston was the bestselling novel of 1900. The story takes place in colonial Jamestown during the 1600’s. Captain Ralph Percy, an English soldier turned Virginian explorer buys a wife - little knowing that she is the escaping ward of King James I... | |
![]() In this remarkably detailed and sweeping fifth installment, Mary Johnston takes us from discoveries and settlements to the evolution into the first colonies, specifically Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and finally Georgia. Group: Chronicles of America Series |
By: Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews (1860-1936) | |
---|---|
![]() The title of this historical fiction could as well have been "A Soldier’s Mother" or “An Unknown Soldier”. There are indeed butterflies, and there is a small boy who grows into a fine, strapping young man who goes to war. But this moving novella centers squarely on the young man's mother, her love for him and her abiding faith. |
By: Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958) | |
---|---|
![]() This is the second of two travelogues published by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958). Both deal with Glacier National Park, and this book also deals with the Cascade Mountains (The other is entitled Through Glacier Park). Rinehart wrote hundreds of short stories, poems, travelogues and articles, though she is most famous for her mystery stories. The region that became Glacier National Park was first inhabited by Native Americans and upon the arrival of European explorers, was dominated by the Blackfeet in the east and the Flathead in the western regions. | |
![]() A personal account of the American author's visit to Europe in January 1915 while a war correspondent in Belgium for The Saturday Evening Post. She writes: "War is not two great armies meeting in a clash and frenzy of battle. It is much more than that. War is a boy carried on a stretcher, looking up at God's blue sky with bewildered eyes that are soon to close; war is a woman carrying a child that has been wounded by a shell; war is spirited horses tied in burning buildings and waiting for death; war is the flower of a race, torn, battered, hungry, bleeding, up to its knees in icy water; war is an old woman burning a candle before the Mater Dolorosa for the son she has given... |
By: Mary Rowlandson (c.1637-1711) | |
---|---|
![]() This is the story of Mary Rowlandson’s capture by American Indians in 1675. It is a blunt, frightening, and detailed work with several moments of off-color humor. Mary, the wife of a minister, was captured by Natives during King Philips War while living in a Lancaster town, most of which was decimated, and the people murdered. See through her eyes, which depict Indians as the instruments of Satan. Her accounts were a best-seller of the era, and a seminal work, being one of the first captivity narratives ever published by a woman... |
By: Mary Seacole (1805-1881) | |
---|---|
![]() I should have thought that no preface would have been required to introduce Mrs. Seacole to the British public, or to recommend a book which must, from the circumstances in which the subject of it was placed, be unique in literature. If singleness of heart, true charity, and Christian works; if trials and sufferings, dangers and perils, encountered boldly by a helpless woman on her errand of mercy in the camp and in the battle-field, can excite sympathy or move curiosity, Mary Seacole will have many friends and many readers... |
By: Mary Stoyell Stimpson | |
---|---|
![]() In every country there have been certain men and women whose busy lives have made the world better or wiser. The names of such are heard so often that every child should know a few facts about them. It is hoped the very short stories told here may make boys and girls eager to learn more about these famous people. (from the Forward of the text) |
By: Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) | |
---|---|
![]() Regarded as the one of the earliest examples of feminist philosophy, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is written as a direct response to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, a French politician who delivered a report to the French National Assembly suggesting that women should only receive domestic education and additionally encourages women to stay clear of political affairs. In her treatise, Wollstonecraft avidly criticizes this inadequate perception of women as an inferior sex and attacks social inequality, while also arguing for women’s rights in the hope of redefining their position both in society and in marriage... | |
![]() Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the early promoters of gender equality long before other crusaders took up the cause. She is perhaps best known for her books, “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” and “A Vindication of the Rights of Men” . But she also wrote widely on education and used fiction formats to promote her progressive views. This book using the genre of didactic children’s stories, was written the same year as her “Mary: A Fiction” 1788, but was first published anonymously... |
By: Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) | |
---|---|
![]() Culture and Anarchy is a series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold, first published in Cornhill Magazine 1867-68 and collected as a book in 1869. The preface was added in 1875. Arnold's famous piece of writing on culture established his High Victorian cultural agenda which remained dominant in debate from the 1860s until the 1950s. According to his view advanced in the book, "Culture [...] is a study of perfection". He further wrote that: "[Culture] seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light [... |
By: May Agnes Fleming (1840-1880) | |
---|---|
![]() May Agnes Fleming is renowned as Canada's first best-selling novelist. She wrote 42 novels, many of which have only been published posthumely.The Midnight Queen is set in London, in the year of the plague 1665. Sir Norman Kingsley visits the soothsayer "La Masque" who shows him the vision of a beautiful young lady. Falling madly in love with her, he is astonished to find her only a short time later and saves her from being buried alive. He takes her home to care for her, but while he fetches a doctor, she disappears. Sir Kingsley and his friend Ormistan embark on an adventure to solve the mystery of the young lady - will they ever find her again? |
By: May Kellogg Sullivan | |
---|---|
![]() Alaska has only been a state since 1959, and the breathtaking terrain remains mostly unspoiled and natural. In modern times, many of us have had the pleasure of visiting Alaska via a luxurious cruise ship, where we enjoyed gourmet meals, amazing entertainment, and a climate-controlled environment. It's easy to also book a land package that enables you to see more of the country by train.Imagine what it was like to visit the same wild, untamed countryside in 1899. Instead of boarding a sleek, stylish cruise ship, you travel for weeks on a steamer... |
By: May Sinclair (1863-1946) | |
---|---|
![]() The genius of May Sinclair lies in her brilliant bridging of the Victorian and the modern eras, in her determination never to become ossified in an outdated way of thought or of Art. Though a generation older than the famous literati of the postwar era, she clearly perceived what was worth saving of the old and what was worth embracing of the new. This is clear, of course, in her remarkable fiction, particularly in the astonishing “Life and Death of Harriet Frean,” “Mary Olivier,” and “Tree of Heaven,” in which she broke new ground in psychological and stream-of-consciousness fiction... |
By: Meriel Buchanan (1886-1959) | |
---|---|
![]() The author of this work was the daughter of the British ambassador to Russia. She was in St. Petersburg from before World War I to after the Bolshevik Revolution, leaving in January 1918. Rather than a dry retelling of the history of this period, the author gives a more personal view of the events, as she lived through them. - Summary by TriciaG |
By: Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) | |
---|---|
![]() "The expedition of Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, for exploring the river Missouri, and the best communication from that to the Pacific Ocean, has had all the success which could be expected. They have traced the Missouri nearly to its source; descended the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, ascertained with accuracy the Geography, of that interesting communication across the continent; learned the character of the country, its commerce and inhabitants; and it is but justice to say that Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, and their brave companions, have, by this arduous service, deserved well of their country... |
By: Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov (1814-1841) | |
---|---|
![]() A Hero of Our Time is indeed a portrait, but not of one man. It is a portrait built up of all our generation's vices in full bloom. You will again tell me that a human being cannot be so wicked, and I will reply that if you can believe in the existence of all the villains of tragedy and romance, why wouldn't believe that there was a Pechorin? If you could admire far more terrifying and repulsive types, why aren't you more merciful to this character, even if it is fictitious? Isn't it because there's more truth in it than you might wish? |
By: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi | |
---|---|
![]() Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869 – 1948) was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha — resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience. This philosophy was firmly founded upon ahimsa, or total nonviolence, and led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is commonly known around the world as Mahatma Gandhi and in India also as Bapu. He is officially honoured in India as the Father of the Nation; his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday. |
By: Moncure Daniel Conway (1832-1907) | |
---|---|
![]() Moncure Daniel Conway was an American abolitionist, Unitarian, clergyman and author. This second volume of his autobiography covers the years from the US Civil War to roughly 1904. |
By: Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) | |
---|---|
![]() The Guide for the Perplexed by Mūsá ibn Maymūn is regarded as one of the most important works of Medieval Jewish thought. The book attempted to harmonize the philosophy of Aristotle with the Rabbinical teachings, but was regarded by many at the time as antithetical to Jewish theology, despite its earnest arguments in vindication of the ways of God. - Summary by Daniel Davison |
By: Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts (1840-1912) | |
---|---|
![]() While claiming to be historical papers on the causes of the United States Civil War, the author indulges in some Slavery Apologetics. An interesting view from a southern lady on what caused the war and why the south was the underdog. |
By: Mrs. Philip Snowden (1881-1951) | |
---|---|
![]() Written in the aftermath of Word War I, Viscountess Snowden recounts her travels in post war Europe in, as she describes it, "an attempt to do what one person might do, or at least attempt, to restore good feeling between the nations and the normal course of life as quickly as possible." An outspoken pacifist, socialist, and feminist who nonetheless strongly denounced the Bolsheviks, Snowden was a controversial and polarizing figure. whose views and observations offer a unique perspective on Europe in the '20s. - Summary by Ciufi Galeazzi |
By: Muriel O. Davis | |
---|---|
![]() This little book opens on the eve of the French Revolution. The government is crippled by financial mismanagement, ruled by a King who, in the author's words, is "devoid of both ability and energy," and resented by a tax-oppressed peasantry and a rising middle class. The Revolution escapes the control of its instigators and France is plunged into the Terror and international war. Enter Napoleon, a man with "an enormous capacity for work," who can "get to the root of a matter and master technicalities with great swiftness," but whose "vulgar desire for recognition... |
By: Mykhailo Hrushevsky (1866-1934) | |
---|---|
![]() A short history of Ukrainian national aspirations, written by one of the most prominent Ukrainian historians. Published in the early months of World War I. - Summary by Kazbek |
By: N. E. Dionne (1848-1917) | |
---|---|
![]() A biography of Samuel de Champlain, French explorer, founder of Quebec, and father of New France. ( |
By: Nat Love (1854-1921) | |
---|---|
![]() Nat Love was born a slave, emancipated into abject poverty, grew up riding the range as a cowboy and spent his maturity riding the rails as a Pullman Porter. For me, the most amazing thing about him is that despite the circumstances of his life, which included being owned like a farm animal solely because of the color of his skin and spending later decades living and working as an equal with white coworkers, he was an unrepentant racist! Convinced that the only good Indian was a dead one, and that... |
By: National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders | |
---|---|
![]() The summer of 1967 again brought racial disorders to American cities, and with them shock, fear and bewilderment to the nation. The worst came during a two-week period in July, first in Newark and then in Detroit. Each set off a chain reaction in neighboring communities. On July 28, 1967, the President of the United States [Lyndon B. Johnson] established this Commission and directed us to answer three basic questions: What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again? This is our basic conclusion: Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal... |
By: Neil Munro (1863-1930) | |
---|---|
![]() Doom Castle is the story of young Count Victor's journey to Scotland after the Jacobite Rebellion, searching for a traitor to the Jacobite cause as well as a mysterious man under the name of "Drimdarroch", whom he swore revenge. After a perilious journey, Count Victor arrives at Doom Castle as a guest of the enigmatic Baron of Doom, his two strange servitors and his beautiful daughter... (Summary by Carolin) |
By: Nellie McClung (1873-1951) | |
---|---|
![]() " Believing that the woman's claim to a common humanity is not an unreasonable one, and that the successful issue of such claim rests primarily upon the sense of fair play which people have or have not according to how they were born, and Therefore to men and women everywhere who love a fair deal, and are willing to give it to everyone, even women, this book is respectfully dedicated by the author." |
By: Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) | |
---|---|
![]() History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy is an historical account by Niccolò Machiavelli. Toward the end of 1520, the Cardinal Giulio of Medici, later Pope Clement VII, offered Machiavelli the appointment to write a history of Florence. Although Machiavelli was reluctant to accept, accepting was his only way to regain the good graces of the Medici who had regained power and were in a position to offer him employment and protection. Doing the history also provided a way for Machiavelli’s views to become the “official” history of Florentine and Italian affairs. Once completed, the work was presented officially to Giulio, now Pope, in May of 1526. |
By: Nicholas Canzona (1925-1985) | |
---|---|
![]() It meant little to most Americans on 25 June 1950 to read in their Sunday newspapers that civil strife had broken out in Korea. They could hardly have suspected that this remote Asiatic peninsula was to become the scene of the fourth most costly military effort of American history, both in blood and money, before the end of the year. With a reputation built largely on amphibious warfare, Marines of the 1st Brigade were called upon to prove their versatility in sustained ground action. On three separate occasions within the embattled Perimeter—south toward Sachon and twice along the Naktong River—these Marine units hurled the weight of their assault force at the enemy... |
By: Noah Davis (b. 1804) | |
---|---|
![]() The object of the writer, in preparing this account of himself, is to RAISE SUFFICIENT MEANS TO FREE HIS LAST TWO CHILDREN FROM SLAVERY. Having already, within twelve years past, purchased himself, his wife, and five of his children, at a cost, altogether, of over four thousand dollars, he now earnestly desires a humane and Christian public to AID HIM IN THE SALE OF THIS BOOK, for the purpose of finishing the task in which he has so long and anxiously labored. God has blessed him in an extraordinary... |
By: Okakura Kakuzo (1863-1913) | |
---|---|
![]() The Book of Tea was written by Okakura Kakuzo in the early 20th century. It was first published in 1906, and has since been republished many times. – In the book, Kakuzo introduces the term Teaism and how Tea has affected nearly every aspect of Japanese culture, thought, and life. The book is noted to be accessibile to Western audiences because though Kakuzo was born and raised Japanese, he was trained from a young age to speak English; and would speak it all his life, becoming proficient at communicating his thoughts in the Western Mind... |
By: Olive Gilbert (?-?) & Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) | |
---|---|
![]() The Narrative of Sojourner Truth is the gripping autobiographical account of Sojourner Truth's life as a slave in pre-Civil War New York State, and her eventual escape to Freedom. Since Sojourner could neither read or write, she dictated her story to Olive Gilbert after they met at a Women’s Rights rally. The Narrative was first published in 1850, and was widely distributed by the Abolitionist Movement. It was one of the catalysts for the rise of anti-slavery public opinion in the years leading up to the Civil War... |
By: Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) | |
---|---|
![]() 'Thoughts on South Africa' is a collection of Schreiner's observations of colonial South Africa in the early 19th century, mostly regarding Boer-English relations. The book was published posthumously in 1923. Prospective listeners should be aware that it reflects the place, culture and language of the time in which it was written. |
By: Oliver Lodge (1851-1940) | |
---|---|
![]() This book takes its origin in a course of lectures on the history and progress of Astronomy arranged for Sir Oliver Lodge in the year 1887. The first part of this book is devoted to the biographies and discoveries of well known astronomers like Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. In the second part, the biographies take a back seat, while scientific discoveries are discussed more extensively, like the discovery of Asteroids and Neptune, a treatise on the tides and others. |
By: Oliver Optic | |
---|---|
![]() "Down South" is the fifth and last volume but one of the "Great Western Series." The action of the story is confined entirely to Florida; and this fact may seem to belie the title of the Series. But the young yachtsman still maintains his hold upon the scenes of his earlier life in Michigan, and his letters come regularly from that State. If he were old enough to vote, he could do so only in Michigan; and therefore he has not lost his right to claim a residence there during his temporary sojourn in the South... | |
![]() The sixth and last volume of the Woodville stories contains the record of a mechanical, rather than a moral triumph, though the virtues of patience and perseverance are incidentally illustrated, and the "little captain" of the Woodville is always a good son, a forbearing brother, and a kind friend. Lawry Wilford, the young pilot, is a boy of spirit and energy, who overcomes difficulties by a strong faith in himself, and redeems his family from poverty, in spite of the bad example and the bad conduct of his father and his older brother... |
By: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) | |
---|---|
![]() Holmes describes his frantic search through Civil War torn landscapes for his wounded son, the future Supreme Court Justice. Originally published in The Atlantic Magazine, 1862. Holmes, Sr. (1809 -1894) was an American physician, poet, professor, lecturer, and author. He was regarded by his peers as one of the best writers of the 19th century. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast Table" series, which began with The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858). He is also recognized as an important medical reformer. |
By: Osborne Perry Anderson (1830-1872) | |
---|---|
![]() A Voice from Harper's Ferry is the abolitionist testament of Osborne Perry Anderson, the only surviving black participant in the 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry organized by John Brown. The book details the motivations and preparations for the raid, the events that unfolded over several days in October 1859, and Anderson's subsequent escape. It ends with a short selection of poems from various sources honoring Brown and the movement for abolition. |
By: Oscar Browning (1837-1923) | |
---|---|
![]() The High Middle Ages in Italy, 1250-1409, were a time of incessant strife between rival city-states, some the Ghibelline allies of the Holy Roman Empire, others joining forces with the Guelph armies of the Papacy. Mercenary captains led hired bands of soldiers of fortune. These captains sometimes became great despots, ruling the very cities that had engaged them. Florence began her ascent. The terrible Visconti dominated Milan, and Genoa established a vast trading empire, only to suffer defeat and decline when her fleet was destroyed by Venice, the Queen of the Adriatic. | |
![]() Italy from 1409 to 1530 is synonymous with the Renaissance, but this was also the age of the condottieri, Italian captains of mercenary companies and multinational armies who fought in the service of city states, monarchs, and the Pope. Some like Ludovico Sforza in Milan seized power and founded dynasties in their own right. The merchant princes of the Medici family reached their apogee in Lorenzo the Magnificent in Florence, but faltered in the Papacy; Leo X proved no match for Martin Luther and Clement VII was powerless to avert the sack of Rome in 1527... | |
![]() This short survey opens with the accession of that portly spendthrift, King George IV. With British support, Greece becomes independent. The Irish, under O'Connell, carry agitation to the point of rebellion, forcing Parliament to pass the Catholic Emancipation Act. After a painful labor of over a year, the First Reform Bill is enacted in 1832. Queen Victoria comes to the throne in 1837. Faced with an Irish famine, Sir Robert Peel, repeals the Corn Laws. There is a Great Exhibition, a war in the Crimea, and a rebellion in India. Gladstone and Disraeli battle on the floor of the House of Commons, while British imperialism advances in South Africa and in Egypt. - Summary by Pamela Nagami |
By: Oscar D. Skelton (1878-1941) | |
---|---|
![]() When the pace of railroad construction slackened in 1914, Canada had achieved a remarkable position in the railway world. Only five other countries—the United States, Russia, Germany, India, and, by a small margin, France—possessed a greater mileage; and, relatively to population, none came anywhere near her. This is the story of how Canada became a country stitched together by rail. |
By: Oscar Micheaux (1884-1951) | |
---|---|
![]() This novel investigates the black urban community of the early twentieth century, highlighting the base degradation and violence there. But the story also focuses on the white man's obsession with black women. The issue of miscegenation is at the center of the plot, involving the two central characters, both black, but light skinned. They are Sydney Wyeth and Mildred Latham. Sydney is the author of a book that he tries to sell to members of the black community, especially, because he is interested in advancing the race through education... |
By: Osgood E. Fuller (1835-1900) | |
---|---|
![]() Brave Men and Women is a collection of stories about historical figures who, through success and failure, made an impact on their world. As noted in the Preface, the author's aim "has simply been to form a sort of mosaic or variegated picture of the Brave Life - the life which recognizes the Divine Goodness in all things, striving through good report and evil report, and in manifold ways, which one is often unqualified to judge, to attain to the life of Him who is 'the light of the world'." - Summary by Kristin Hand |
By: Osmund Airy (1845-1928) | |
---|---|
![]() In this trim volume the British historian, Osmund Airy writes of the period between 1648 and 1679 when Cardinal Mazarin, having concluded the masterly Peace of Westphalia for France, confronts the rebellions of the nobility known as the Fronde. By the time of his death in 1661, Mazarin has completed the work of Richelieu and made Louis XIV an absolute monarch, ready to extend his borders by conquest. But in Holland, the young Stadtholder, William III of Orange, resolutely opposes Louis's military... |
By: Owen Wister | |
---|---|
![]() Ulysses S. Grant was the great hero (for the North) in the Civil War and the 18th President of the United States. This short biography is only 145 pages in a little pamphlet size. The author is famous for his stories of the Old West, but he also wrote a substantial body of nonfiction literature. | |
![]() Nonfiction. Appalled by the savagery of World War I, Owen Wister in 1915 published an attempt to move the United States out of neutrality into joining the Allies against Germany. His aim was the quicker defeat of that nation. (Wister: “the new Trinity of German worship – the Super-man, the Super-race, and the Super-state.”) He was but one of many literary personages who joined in this effort. A moving quote: “Perhaps nothing save calamity will teach us what Europe is thankful to have learned again – that some things are worse than war, and that you can pay too high a price for peace; but that you cannot pay too high for the finding and keeping of your own soul.” | |
![]() Augustus visits King's Port, South Carolina, at the request of his Aunt Carola, and at her expense. She wants him to research geneaologies and records to find proof that he is descended from royalty so that he can join her exclusive club, the Colonial Society. While there, he becomes involved in a love affair between John Mayrant and Eliza La Heu. |
By: Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) | |
---|---|
![]() With this collection of short stories, Dunbar sought to draw on the success of his dialect poems by recreating and portraying the southern plantation during slavery. The stories focus on the stereotypical portrait of slaves as obedient workers happy to spend their lives in service of their benevolent owner. His attempt to find success was only partially realized, as his stories drew not only criticism but, in some cases, anger at their very stereotypical nature. The book itself, however, proved to be more lucrative than previous fiction works had been for the author. |
By: Peter Fisher (1782-1848) | |
---|---|
![]() Originally published in 1825 under the title: Sketches of New Brunswick : containing an account of the first settlement of the province, with a brief description of the country, climate, productions, inhabitants, government, rivers, towns, settlements, public institutions, trade, revenue, population, &c., by an inhabitant of the province. The value of this history is in the fact that it was written when the Province was still in its infancy. Although there had been a few small settlements established in New Brunswick prior to 1783, the main influx of settlers were Loyalists who chose to remove to the area from the United States following the American Revolution. |
By: Peter H. Ditchfield | |
---|---|
![]() VANISHING ENGLANDby P. H. DITCHFIELDINTRODUCTIONThis book is intended not to raise fears but to record facts. We wish to describe with pen and pencil those features of England which are gradually disappearing, and to preserve the memory of them. It may be said that we have begun our quest too late; that so much has already vanished that it is hardly worth while to record what is left. Although much has gone, there is still, however, much remaining that is good, that reveals the artistic skill and taste of our forefathers, and recalls the wonders of old-time... |
By: Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) | |
---|---|
![]() 'Peter Kropotkin was a Russian anarcho-communist and scientist. This is his autobiography, and he writes not only about his own life, but also about 19th century Russian society and politics. He was born into the nobility and had a military education, but he gradually abandoned the values of his social class and became an anti-authoritarian socialist, opposed to both the rule of the Tsars and to the seizing of power by the authoritarian Bolsheviks. He was also interested in literature, biology, economics and geographical exploration. This first volume of his memoirs covers his childhood, his education, and the time he spent in Siberia. '. (Introduction by Elin, ) | |
![]() Peter Kropotkin was a Russian anarcho-communist and scientist. This is his autobiography, and he writes not only about his own life, but also about 19th century Russian society and politics. He was born into the nobility and had a military education, but he gradually abandoned the values of his social class and became an anti-authoritarian socialist, opposed to both the rule of the Tsars and to the seizing of power by the authoritarian Bolsheviks. He was also interested in literature, biology, economics and geographical exploration. This second and last volume of his memoirs covers his time in St Petersburg, his time in prison, and his journeys in Western Europe. ( |
By: Philip Gibbs (1877-1962) | |
---|---|
![]() In this book I have written about some aspects of the war which, I believe, the world must know and remember, not only as a memorial of men's courage in tragic years, but as a warning of what will happen again--surely--if a heritage of evil and of folly is not cut out of the hearts of peoples. Here it is the reality of modern warfare not only as it appears to British soldiers, of whom I can tell, but to soldiers on all the fronts where conditions were the same... The purpose of this book is to get... |
By: Phoebe Yates Pember (1823-1913) | |
---|---|
![]() Phoebe Yates Pember served as a matron in the Confederate Chimborazo military hospital in Richmond, Virginia, during the Civil War, overseeing a dietary kitchen serving meals to 300 or more wounded soldiers daily. Reminiscences of a Southern Hospital is her vivid recounting of hospital life and of her tribulations (and personal growth) as a female administrator. To follow her from day one, when she is greeted with “ill-repressed disgust” that “one of them had come,” and she, herself, “could... |
By: Pierre Beaumarchais (1732-1799) | |
---|---|
![]() Count Almaviva's heart is stolen when he lays eyes on Rosine, but he worries that she will only love him for his money. Can Figaro help him? This comedy is the first play in Beaumarchais' Figaro trilogy. It was written in 1773, but because of political and legal problems, Beaumarchais could not stage the play until 1775. The Barber of Seville was adapted into at least five operas, the best-known being by Rossini. The other plays in the trilogy are The Follies of a Day: or the Marriage of Figaro and The Guilty Mother... |
By: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard (1818-1893) | |
---|---|
![]() General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was one of the senior commanders of Southern forces during the Civil War. It was he who initiated the hostilities by opening fire on Ft. Sumter in Charleston harbor, in April, 1861. In July of that year, having taken command of the Confederate Army of the Potomac, he triumphed in the first serious clash of the war, at Manassas, Virginia. His army, aided by reinforcements from Johnston’s army in the Shenandoah Valley, routed a Federal army under General McDowell... |
By: Pierre Loti (1850-1923) | |
---|---|
![]() Pierre Loti [Julien Viaud] (1850-1923) was a French naval officer and novelist. The present book is one of his few works of non-fiction, a small collection of letters and diary entries that describe his views and experiences in the wars and military operations in which he participated. Besides World War I, he also sheds light upon his views and involvement in the preparations for the Turkish Revolution of 1923, for which until today a famous hill and popular café in Istanbul are named after him. |
By: Plato (428/427 BC - 348/347 BC) | |
---|---|
![]() Plato's Phaedo is one of the great dialogues of his middle period, along with the Republic and the Symposium. The Phaedo, which depicts the death of Socrates, is also Plato's seventh and last dialogue to detail the philosopher's final days (the first six being Theaetetus, Euthyphro, Sophist, Statesman, Apology, and Crito).In the dialogue, Socrates discusses the nature of the afterlife on his last day before being executed by drinking hemlock. Socrates has been imprisoned and sentenced to death by an Athenian jury for not believing in the gods of the state and for corrupting the youth of the city... | |
![]() Νόμοι (Laws) is Plato's final dialogue written after his attempt to advise the tyrant Dionysius II of Syracuse. The dialogue takes place between: an Athenian Stranger (Socrates? A god in human form?); the quiet Lacedaemonian Megillus; and the Cretan Cleinias. The Stranger asks whether humans live to be more effective at waging war or if there is something more important a legislator should seek to achieve. During their pilgrimage Cleinias discloses his role in the establishment of a new colony... |
By: President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Is | |
---|---|
![]() At 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, a serious accident occurred at the Three Mile Island 2 nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania. The accident was initiated by mechanical malfunctions in the plant and made much worse by a combination of human errors in responding to it. During the next 4 days, the extent and gravity of the accident was unclear to the managers of the plant, to federal and state officials, and to the general public. What is quite clear is that its impact, nationally and internationally, has raised serious concerns about the safety of nuclear power. This Commission was established in response to those concerns. |
By: Publius Cornelius Tacitus | |
---|---|
![]() The Germania (Latin: De Origine et situ Germanorum, literally The Origin and Situation of the Germans), written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus around 98, is an ethnographic work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire. Germania fits squarely within the tradition established by authors from Herodotus to Julius Caesar. Tacitus himself had already written a similar essay on the lands and tribes of Britannia in his Agricola. The Germania begins with a description of the lands, laws, and customs... | |
![]() The Annals was Tacitus’ final work, covering the period from the death of Augustus Caesar in the year 14. He wrote at least 16 books, but books 7-10 and parts of books 5, 6, 11 and 16 are missing. Book 6 ends with the death of Tiberius and books 7-12 presumably covered the reigns of Caligula and Claudius. The remaining books cover the reign of Nero, perhaps until his death in June 68 or until the end of that year, to connect with the Histories. The second half of book 16 is missing, ending with the events of the year 66... | |
![]() The Agricola (Latin: De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae, lit. On the life and character of Julius Agricola) is a book by the Roman historian Tacitus, written c 98, which recounts the life of his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola, an eminent Roman general. It also covers, briefly, the geography and ethnography of ancient Britain. As in the Germania, Tacitus favorably contrasts the liberty of the native Britons to the corruption and tyranny of the Empire; the book also contains eloquent and vicious polemics against the rapacity and greed of Rome. This translation by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, was first published in 1877. | |
![]() The Histories was written between 100 and 110 A.D. It covered the Year of Four Emperors following the downfall of Nero, the rise of Vespasian, and the rule of the Flavian Dynasty up to the death of Domitian. Only the first four books and 26 chapters of the fifth book have survived, covering the year 69 and the first part of 70. The work is believed to have continued up to the death of Domitian on September 18, 96. As a prelude to the account of Titus’s suppression of the Great Jewish Revolt, Book 5 features a short ethnographic survey of the ancient Jews as seen from the Roman point of view. This translation was first published in 1912 |
By: R. Talbot Kelly (1861-1934) | |
---|---|
![]() A short travelogue of Egypt, this book was written as part of an early 20th century series of travelogues on exotic destinations. |
By: Rabindranath Tagore | |
---|---|
![]() Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), also known by the sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali poet, Brahmo religionist, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He became Asia’s first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. The Home and the World is a 1916 novel, set in the estate of the rich Bengali noble Nikhil. He lives happily with his beautiful wife Bimala until the appearance of his friend and radical revolutionist, Sandip... |
By: Rafael Sabatini | |
---|---|
![]() Follow the exploits of Sir Crispin Galliard, also known as The Tavern Knight, in his defence of the King of England against Cromwell and his Puritan Entourage. |
By: Ralph Delahaye Paine (1871-1925) | |
---|---|
![]() Described by the author as: BEING A TRUE HISTORY OF THE GOLD, JEWELS, AND PLATE OF PIRATES, GALLEONS, ETC., WHICH ARE SOUGHT FOR TO THIS DAY. Ralph Delahaye Paine was an American journalist and author popular in the early 20th century. Paine's book tells of pirates, heroes, scoundrels, and treasure seekers creating, stealing, seeking, and sometimes finding great wealth. It also tells of treasures yet undiscovered . It remains the stuff of dreams for countless kids growing up, and those of us who never grew up. - Summary by Tony Posante |
By: Ralph Keeler (1840-1873) | |
---|---|
![]() Ralph Keeler failed as a novelist, but this autobiography reflects a life well-lived with humor and adventure. Keeler was in the same literary circle as satirist Bret Harte, novelist Charles Warren Stoddard, editor Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and essayist William Dean Howells. He so impressed Mark Twain that Twain wrote an essay about him called "Ralph Keeler". In 1873, on his way to Cuba, he reportedly was thrown overboard by a Spanish loyalist who objected to his backing of the revolutionary, anti-Spanish movement. - Summary by John Greenman |
By: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) | |
---|---|
![]() This is the best of Emerson's later works, qualifying his earlier popular essays, series one and two, with the heavier hand of experience. The Conduct of Life ostensibly is a set of essays about how to live life, but also is an amalgam of what life taught Emerson. |
By: Ray Vaughn Pierce | |
---|---|
![]() The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser In Plain English, Or, Medicine Simplified. By R.V. Pierce, M.D. INTRODUCTORY WORDS. Health and disease are physical conditions upon which pleasure and pain, success and failure, depend. Every individual gain increases public gain. Upon the health of its people is based the prosperity of a nation; by it every value is increased, every joy enhanced. Life is incomplete without the enjoyment of healthy organs and faculties, for these give rise to the delightful sensations of existence... |
By: Reuben Gold Thwaites (1853-1913) | |
---|---|
![]() Afloat on the Ohio, An Historical Pilgrimage, of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, From Redstone to Cairo.There were four of us pilgrims—my Wife, our Boy of ten and a half years, the Doctor, and I. My object in going—the others went for the outing—was to gather "local color" for work in Western history. The Ohio River was an important factor in the development of the West. I wished to know the great waterway intimately in its various phases,—to see with my own eyes what the borderers saw; in imagination, to redress the pioneer stage, and repeople it. ( From the Preface ) | |
![]() Historic Waterways, Six Hundred Miles of Canoeing down the Rock, Fox and Wisconsin Rivers.This volume is the record of six hundred miles of canoeing experiences on historic waterways in Wisconsin and Illinois during the summer of 1887. There has been no attempt at exaggeration, to color its homely incidents, or to picture charms where none exist. It is intended to be a simple, truthful narrative of what was seen and done upon a series of novel outings through the heart of the Northwest. If it may induce others to undertake similar excursions, and thus increase the little navy of healthy and self-satisfied canoeists, the object of the publication will have been attained. |
By: Rex Beach (1877-1949) | |
---|---|
![]() Unfairly given a dishonorable discharge from the army, Calvin Gray goes to Dallas, where he manages to win the trust of a jeweler and is able to sell a number of diamonds to the newly oil rich Briskows. He makes friends with the family and helps them adjust to their newly found riches. The Briskows, in turn, help him prove false the charges that caused his dismissal from the army. |
By: Richard B. Morris (1904-1989) | |
---|---|
![]() In this short work, Morris and Woodress present a selection of fascinating source materials to survey key events which occurred during the presidencies of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams. As the authors state in their preface, "The early part of the last century was an exciting time to live in America. The signers of the Declaration of Independence and the framers of the Constitution, mostly old men by now, saw that their experiment in republican government had turned out to be a success... |
By: Richard Burton Deane (1848-1940) | |
---|---|
![]() Learn more about the famous and respected Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This book is the personal recollections of one ‘Mountie’; his life, experiences and trials as an officer in a new frontier – The Canadian Northwest. |
By: Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890) | |
---|---|
![]() Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821 – 1890) was an English explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, linguist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia and Africa as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian, and African languages.Burton's best-known achievements include traveling in disguise to Mecca, The Book of One Thousand Nights and A Night, an... |
By: Richard Haigh (1895-) | |
---|---|
![]() Richard Haigh was an Infantry lieutenant in the 2nd Royal Berkshire Infantry Regiment serving in the Somme area in 1916. Shortly after Tanks were first used in battle in September of 1916 the British Army asked for volunteers, Lieutenant Haigh signed up and was accepted in December of 1916. He describes the training and actions he participated in until the war ended in 1918. He was awarded MC in 1916 as Lt. (acting Capt.) Richard Haigh, Royal Berkshire Regiment. He was commissioned from the RMC (Sandhurst) to the Berkshires 16th Feb 1915; on resigning his commission in 1919, he joined the General Reserve of Officers. |
By: Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916) | |
---|---|
![]() Experiences and observations of the journalist in the Cuban-Spanish War, the Greek-Turkish War, the Spanish-American War, the South African War, and the Japanese-Russian War, accompanied by "A War Correspondent’s Kit." | |
![]() This is the story of Hemingway, who, after a hunting trip in Uganda, settles in Zanzibar for a while to live among the English-speaking expatriate community on that island. While keeping his true identity well to himself, he falls in love with Ms. Polly Adair, the American Belle of the little society. But when he asks her to marry him, it seems that Ms. Adair has a secret... |
By: Richard William Church (1815-1890) | |
---|---|
![]() In 395 A.D. Theodosius, the last ruler of the undivided Roman Empire died. To his young and incompetent son, Honorius, he left the government of its western half. Honorius depended upon the great general, Stilicho, to withstand the Visigoths under Alaric. But when he fecklessly abandoned his general to execution by palace intriguers, Alaric conquered and sacked Rome . Thus opened the era of chaotic leadership, social disintegration, and barbarian conquest, which used to be called the Dark Ages. The Franks emerged and helped to found the temporal power of the Papacy... |
By: Richard Wilson (1887-1976) | |
---|---|
![]() Richard Wilson has taken tales from the two great Indian epics, the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, as well as other early sources, and has retold them in English, in an effort to showcase to young English-speaking readers that 'oriental' stories share the same elements as tales they are used to. Love, hate, virtue, oppression, tenderness, bravery and resourcefulness and an ultimate desire to conquer evil. - Summary by Paraphrased from the Introduction |
By: Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) | |
---|---|
![]() In contrast to Scott’s South Pole expedition, Amundsen’s expedition benefited from good equipment, appropriate clothing, and a fundamentally different primary task (Amundsen did no surveying on his route south and is known to have taken only two photographs) Amundsen had a better understanding of dogs and their handling, and he used of skis more effectively. He pioneered an entirely new route to the Pole and they returned. In Amundsen’s own words: “Victory awaits him who has everything in order — luck, people call it... |