The narrative follows Peter Ayerst, an RAF pilot whose extensive service spanned from the onset to the conclusion of World War II. His experiences include critical battles such as Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, and D-Day, showcasing his resilience and skill as he flew various aircraft, including Spitfires and Hurricanes. Ayerst's remarkable journey also highlights his recognition with the Distinguished Flying Cross and collaboration with renowned test pilot Alex Henshaw post-war, making his untold story a significant contribution to aviation history.
The Earl of Clarendon describes 17th century bullfights; Salvador Dali plays a surrealist joke on a snooty barman at the Ritz; Rubens visits the Alc�zar; Manet is at the Prado; generals and anarchists meet in the Puerta del Sol. Hugh Thomas has chosen these and other vivid snapshots of Madrid's history from diaries, letters, memoirs and novels across five centuries to evoke the city's drama and life.
After many years of research, award-winning historian Hugh Thomas portrays, in a balanced account, the complete history of the slave trade. Beginning with the first Portuguese slaving expeditions, he describes and analyzes the rise of one of the largest and most elaborate maritime and commercial ventures in all of history. Between 1492 and 1870, approximately eleven million black slaves were carried from Africa to the Americas to work on plantations, in mines, or as servants in houses. "The Slave Trade" is alive with villains and heroes and illuminated by eyewitness accounts. Hugh Thomas's achievement is not only to present a compelling history of the time but to answer as well such controversial questions as who the traders were, the extent of the profits, and why so many African rulers and peoples willingly collaborated. Thomas also movingly describes such accounts as are available from the slaves themselves.
'World Without End' is the conclusion of a magisterial three-volume history of the Spanish Empire by Hugh Thomas, its foremost worldwide authority. It tells the story of life in a conquered territory that stretched from Cuba to Peru, and of the final conquests of the greatest empire that the world had then seen since the fall of Rome 1,000 years before.
A masterpiece of the historian's art, Hugh Thomas's The Spanish Civil War
remains the best, most engrossing narrative of one of the most emblematic and
misunderstood wars of the twentieth century. Revised and updated with
significant new material, including new revelations about atrocities
perpetrated against civilians by both sides in this epic conflict, this
definitive work on the subject (Richard Bernstein, The New York Times) has
been given a fresh face forty years after its initial publication in 1961. In
brilliant, moving detail, Thomas analyzes a devastating conflict in which the
hopes, dreams, and dogmas of a century exploded onto the battlefield. Like no
other account, The Spanish Civil War dramatically reassembles the events that
led a European nation, in a continent on the brink of world war, to divide
against itself, bringing into play the machinations of Franco and Hitler, the
bloodshed of Guernica, and the deeply inspiring heroics of those who rallied
to the side of democracy. Communists, anarchists, monarchists, fascists,
socialists, democrats -- the various forces of the Spanish Civil War composed
a fabric of the twentieth century itself, and Thomas masterfully weaves the
diffuse and fascinating threads of the war together in a manner that has
established the book as a genuine classic of modern history. schovat popis
Since its first publication, Hugh Thomas's The Spanish Civil War has become established as the definitive one-volume history of a conflict that continues to provoke intense controversy today.What was it that roused left-wing sympathizers from all over the world to fight against Franco between 1936 and 1939? Why did the British and US governments refuse to intervene? And why did the Republican cause collapse so violently? Now revised and updated, Hugh Thomas's classic account presents the most objective and unbiased analysis of a passionate struggle where fascism and democracy, communism and Catholicism were at stake - and which was as much an international war as a Spanish one.
Exploring the successful Norman invasion of England in 1066, this concise and readable book focuses especially on the often dramatic and enduring changes wrought by William the Conqueror and his followers. From the perspective of a modern social historian, Hugh M. Thomas considers the conquest's wide-ranging impact by taking a fresh look at such traditional themes as the influence of battles and great men on history and by assessing how far the shift in ruling dynasty and noble elites affected broader aspects of English history. The results, Thomas convincingly shows, are both complex and surprising. In some areas where one might expect profound influence, such as government institutions, there was little change. In other respects, such as the indirect transformation of the English language, the conquest had profound and lasting effects that transformed society as a whole. With its combination of exciting narrative and clear analysis, this book will capture student interest in a range of courses on Medieval and Western history.
Explores the whole sweep of Cuban history from the British capture of Havana
in 1762 through the years of Spanish and United States domination, down to the
twentieth century and the extraordinary revolution of Fidel Castro. This book
analyses the political, economic and social events that have shaped Cuban
history with insight and panache.
Tells the story of the hundreds of conquistadors who set sail on the
precarious journey across the Atlantic - taking with them wheat, the horse,
the guitar and the wheel as well as guns, malaria and slaves - to create an
empire that made Spain the envy of the world.
Beginning with the return of the remnants of Magellan's circumnavigation in
1522 and ending with Charles' death in 1558, the author brings to life the
periods of the Renaissance, revealing how the Spaniards were able to conquer
Guatemala, Yucatan, Columbia, Venezuela, Peru and Chile and why Cabeza de Vaca
walked from Florida to Mexico.
