Born in a prussia that was the supreme militaristic society of the post-Napoleonic era and accustomed from his earliest days to all the trappings and sounds of soldiery, Wilhelm was obsessed through-out his adolescence by the need to appear every inch a soldier. Alan palmer has examined the anglo-german background to Wilhelm's life and reign and he emphasizes his changing attitudes towards Britain - a country he both admired and resented.

In particular he has thrown new light on the clash of imperial-isms in the 1890s, the Kaiser's visit to England in 1907 and on the attitude of the British government in the 1930s towards the exiled monarch. The kaiser' is the definitive biography of one of the crucial figures of early 20th-century history, and essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the era he dominated.

Alan palmer was head of the history department at Highgate School from 1953 to 1969 when he gave up his post to concentrate on historical writing and research. His many books include ‘metternich: councillor of Europe’; ‘Alexander I: Tsar of War’ and ‘Bismarck’. Kaiser wilhelm ii, the cold, brutal ruler who represented the pride and swagger of Imperial Germany, and must take the bulk of the responsibility for the First World War.

But who was the real man behind the image? Although his caricature is firmly etched on the mind, the Kaiser remains an elusive figure. He was, in the minds of many, the man responsible for the catastrophe that engulfed Europe in 1914. Alan palmer has set out to tell the story of the extraordinary life of this temperamentally insecure man who was outwardly so full of swagger and bombast -the epitome of the new, self-confident Germany.

The American Revolution: A History Modern Library Chronicles Series Book 9

Our noblest ideals and aspirations-our commitments to freedom, the well-being of ordinary people, constitutionalism, and equality-came out of the Revolutionary era. How did this great revolution come about? What was its character? What were its consequences? These are the questions this short history seeks to answer.

It is a complicated and at times ironic story that needs to be explained and understood, not blindly celebrated or condemned. New york times bestseller“an elegant synthesis done by the leading scholar in the field, which nicely integrates the work on the American Revolution over the last three decades but never loses contact with the older, classic questions that we have been arguing about for over two hundred years.

Joseph J. But the history of the american revolution, like the history of the nation as a whole, ought not to be viewed simply as a story of right and wrong from which moral lessons are to be drawn. The revolution, in short, gave birth to whatever sense of nationhood and national purpose Americans have had.

Lincoln saw as well that the revolution had convinced Americans that they were a special people with a special destiny to lead the world toward liberty. No doubt the story is a dramatic one: thirteen insignificant colonies three thousand miles from the centers of Western civilization fought off British rule to become, sprawling, in fewer than three decades, a huge, rambunctious republic of nearly four million citizens.

He knew that the revolution not only had legally created the United States, but also had produced all of the great hopes and values of the American people.

Germany: A History

Here, is the dramatic story of germany - from the rise of charlemagne to the age of Martin Luther, from the Thirty Years' War to the iron rule of Otto von Bismarck, from New York Times bestselling historian Richard Russell, and from the formation of the Weimar Republic to the fighting of two world wars.

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Winston Churchill: An Informal Study of Greatness

Upon graduation, he lived in europe and in Polynesia; then, after a brief interlude as editor of a weekly newspaper, became a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Before moments of british crisis, he has been so uniformly right that his incandescent prescience has itself become a burden to his colleagues and to his countrymen at large.

Former british prime minister, Winston Churchill, led one of the most astonishing lives that public service has ever witnessed. Taylor is author of the-Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Travels of Jamie McPheeters. Mr. Focusing on the school years of a young winston Churchill and the early experiences that shaped his ambition, this fascinating biography delves into the private life of Churchill as a student, a journalist and a soldier.

Fields: his Follies and Fortunes. For seventy-seven years he has flashed over the public scene, a beckoning, outsized diamond in a trumpery world. This a delightful and revealing study of a man who, as Taylor puts it, was one of ‘multiple genius’ and ‘one of the most exasperating figures of history.

Praise for winston churchill: an informal study of greatness‘tremendously entertaining reading’ - Kirkus ReviewsPraise for Robert Lewis Taylor“Fields makes all the modern beats look like little Lord Fauntleroys He was a supreme artist and a supreme individual and Taylor does him full justice. Harry golden“robert lewis taylor has written a hilarious history of the fabulous comedian, written it with understanding, sympathy and a gay respect for the scandalous facts involved.

The new york times“It brings its subject vividly, unforgettably back to life.

The Kaiser's Pirates: Hunting Germany?s Raiding Cruisers in World War I

After war broke out on August 4 there was no hope that they could reach home. Including vivid descriptions of the battles of coronel and the falklands and the actions of the Emden, the Karsrühe and the Königsberg, The Kaiser’s Pirates tells a fascinating narrative that ranges across the Atlantic, the Goeben and the Breslau, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the Caribbean.

Skyhorse publishing, as well as our arcade imprint, hitler and his henchmen, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, medieval times, the American Revolution, ancient Rome, gladiators, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the old West, Vikings, and much more.

By1914 germany had ships and sailors scattered across the globe, protecting its overseas colonies and showing the flag” of its new Imperial Navy. Under the leadership of a few brilliant, audacious men, they unleashed a series of raids that threatened Britain’s war effort and challenged the power and prestige of the Royal Navy.

While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home. Instead, they were ordered to attack Britain’s vital trade routes for as long as possible.

The next year saw a battle of wits which stretched across the globe, drawing in ships and men from six empires. By the end, the kaiser’s Pirates” were no more, and Britain once again ruled the waves.

Mexico: A History

The early european explorers were astonished at the immensity of Mexico. It's a history as vast and varied as the country itself. They were equally baffled by the customs, language, and society of the people they encountered. And amidst the slaughter, Spanish friars continued their mission to convert the natives to Christianity, by whatever means.

Here from noted journalist victor alba is the dramatic story of Mexico - from the Aztecs and Mayas to the age of viceroys and the Mexican Revolution. A surprise awaited the visitors beyond every mountain pass, for in a land in which travel was so difficult, the native inhabitants had developed vastly different lifestyles.

Historians and archeologists remain uncertain as to the origins of the earliest settlers or exactly when they arrived, but they had been living there for thousands of years before being "discovered" by the Spaniards. Fortunately for historians, some spanish explorers recorded what they saw, burning religious objects, even while Spanish armies were annihilating the native population and destroying the indigenous culture - tearing down temples, melting down precious metal artifacts.

The country evolved through decades of civil wars and revolution, one government toppled then another until finally, a modern nation-state emerged.

Peter the Great

. Louis fischerthe first modern Russian was Peter the Great. Here we have, sailor, innovator, life-size, but the man who fell in love with a peasant girl and made her his empress; the father who was betrayed by his son; the giant who carried all his life the scars of a childhood terror; the soldier, laborer, not only the great czar, and architect of a nation.

Ian grey's peter the Great reads like a novel. In this enthralling biography of that remarkable ruler, objective, award-winning historian Ian Grey paints an illuminating portrait - clear, and without malice or sentimentality.

Shakespeare's England

In the reigns of those monarchs, the nation was emerging from centuries of medieval turmoil. The small island that had changed so little since the Norman Conquest of 1066 suddenly became a center of international adventure, political experimentation, and artistic development. Young shakespeare was fortunate to be in England.

When william Shakespeare was about twenty, his life changed forever. The first professional theater opened in London in 1576; he arrived, stage-struck and in search of a job, around 1587. During shakespeare's london years, England seethed with plots and intrigue and throbbed with pageantry; everywhere a writer looked was a scene to fire his imagination.

He left stratford and walked to London, where, in time, he became the world's greatest playwright. Here is shakespeare's little-told story, presented against the colorful tapestry of his England, the kingdom under Elizabeth I and James I. Like sir walter raleigh and other daring contemporaries, William Shakespeare was, indeed, an Elizabethan who took advantage of his time.

. He retired to stratford a wealthy gentleman in 1611, only a generation before the theaters of England were closed by the Puritans.

Lincoln's Men: The President and His Private Secretaries

An intimate portrait of Lincoln, so well-drawn that he seems to come alive on the page. Charleston post & courier lincoln’s men by daniel mark epstein offers a fascinating close-up view of the Abraham Lincoln White House through the eyes of Lincoln’s three personal secretaries: John Nicolay, William Stoddard, and John Hay.

Like doris kearns goodwin’s monumental new york Times bestseller, Team of Rivals, Epstein’s Lincoln’s Men sheds a new light on the 16th U. S. Epstein, employs a dreamy, a poet, novelistic tone in describing these young men and their tormented boss. ”. President—his brilliance and vision in a time of national turmoil and Civil War—by focusing on his relationships with the men who worked closely by his side.

Usa today writes, “This is not your typical work of history.

Bismarck

Alan palmer was head of the history department at Highgate School from 1953 to 1969 when he gave up his post to concentrate on historical writing and research. Palmer includes many important extracts from Bismarck’s letters, public and private, and the results of recent research. At the peak of his eminence, the statesman who created a unified Germany and who dominated world politics in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, Otto von Bismarck, was regarded as a legend rather than an individual.

. Alan palmer traces bismarck’s early life, his diplomatic and political career, and his phenomenal rise from obscure Junker landowner to the most powerful king’s servant since Richelieu. Alan palmer writes the sort of history that dons did before “accessible” became an insult. Cool, scholarly, rational, literate.

Sir john Keegan. His many books include ‘victory 1918’; ‘The Kaiser’ and ‘Napoleon and Marie Louise’. This comprehensive biography attempts to dissect the myth and find the man behind the mask, to delineate Bismarck’s formidably complex personality.

The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922

Worse still, they were tragically out of step with the forces shaping the modern world. The fall of the dynasties covers the period from 1905 to 1922, when these four ruling houses crumbled and fell, destroying old alliances and obliterating old boundaries. Outwardly different, grandiose, suffocating in tradition, they were at bottom somewhat alike: opulent, ostentatiously gilded on the surface and rotting at the core.

While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home. An excellent book worthy to rank with Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August and Alan Moorehead’s Gallipoli.

The new york timeson june 28, 1914, in the dusty Balkan town of Sarajevo, an assassin fired two shots. All convulsions of the last half-century, ” taylor writes, stem back to Sarajevo: the two World Wars, the Bolshevik revolution, the rise and fall of Hitler, and the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East.

Millions upon millions of deaths can be traced to one or another of these upheavals; all of us who survive have been scarred at least emotionally by them. In this classic volume, taylor traces the origins of the dynasties whose collapse brought the old order crashing down and the events leading to their astonishingly swift downfall.

Skyhorse publishing, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, as well as our Arcade imprint, the old West, the Third Reich, Vikings, medieval times, gladiators, the JFK assassination, the American Civil War, ancient Rome, conspiracies, Hitler and his henchmen, the American Revolution, and much more.

Popular history of the finest sort.