Bøger af Bill McCann

Hallowe'en is now a multi-million dollar international celebration, but very few people know exactly what they are celebrating. There are many websites that claim to tell the story of Hallowe'en, but the vast majority have managed to jumble history, surmise and fiction into a range of fanciful concoctions.In fact, Hallowe'en is the oldest celebration in the West, going back at least 3,000 years. This little book brings you the fascinating story of why and how this festival was first celebrated and how it evolved into the modern night of ghosts and of witches, of Trick or Treat and of pumpkins.

A modern annotated and unabridged issue of the celebrated Lives of the Queens of England by Agnes Strickland.The text is taken unaltered from the 1857 re-issue of the 1852 Second edition.Many of the original footnotes and references to primary sources have been omitted in the interest of clarity and space.A minimum of footnotes have been added to explain what have by now become obsolete linguistic references and usage.This is the seventh volume in a projected series to cover the entire original eight volumes of Strickland's original Second Edition.In it, we have trailblazing diligent, enlightening and, at times, entertaining biographies of the last four of Henry VIII's six ill-fated wives - Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katharine Howard and Katharine Parr!

London's Blue Plaques in fewer than 170 characters - including spaces! Never has a nutshell been bursting with such wisdom, humanity, dreams realised, and dreams dashed. The heart of London's Blue Plaques in a Nutshell lies in the aphorism - a short, pithy summing up of essential facts. The life and achievements of the subject of each plaque is summarised in a number of aphorisms, none of which contains more than 170 characters. Crammed into this nutshell you will find the character, achievements, peccadilloes and humanity of the great and good (and the not so great and not so good) who once lived and thrived in the great metropolis that is London. The Blue Plaques have now become part of the tradition of London, but a very special part. They are an adventure. They can be a planned adventure or a rollercoaster of discovery where the shades of London's past are waiting around practically every corner of the metropolis to delight and inform you. Part of the delight in walking the streets of London is the discovery of a Plaque on a house where someone famous once lived, and the sudden realisation that you are sharing a little bit of what was their daily view of the world. Less of a delight is the discovery of a plaque to someone whose name you are vaguely familiar with, but about whose life or achievements you can recall very little, or even nothing at all. Then there is the discovery of someone of whom you have never heard but who is tantalisingly briefly described on plaque itself. Experiences such as these provide stimuli to discover more, but very often, by the time we get home and have been distracted by other things, the stimulus has lost much of its power. Even if we make the effort to go to a library, or search the internet, there is no guarantee that we will find all the relevant, or most interesting, information. This is where Blue Plaques in a Nutshell comes in. This book is aimed at the habitué of London who walks the streets in fine weather or who sits on the top deck of a London bus on a rainy day, and at the tourist who tries to cram as much of London as possible into a short visit. It is designed to provide the essential information about each blue plaque instantly. Indeed it does more than that. For the armchair traveller or historical explorer, it provides a handy and ready source of information on the doings and undoings of the almost 900 residents of London who have made significant contributions to the historical, cultural, scientific and economic development of the western world over the past six centuries. Now revised updated in a series of lavishly illustrated individual volumes, the new edition includes all map and GPS coordinates to allow the modern traveller to precisely locate each plaque. Volume 1 is right up to date and summarises the history of the Blue Plaques themselves and presents unique portraits of the 50 actors, actresses, playwrights and theatre managers who have been honoured with a Blue Plaque between 1881 and 2014.

A modern annotated and unabridged issue of the celebrated Lives of the Queens of England by Agnes Strickland.The text is taken unaltered from the 1857 re-issue of the 1852 Second edition.Many of the original footnotes and references to primary sources have been omitted in the interest of clarity and space.A minimum of footnotes have been added to explain what have by now become obsolete linguistic references and usage.This is the third volume in a projected series to cover the entire original eight volumes of Strickland's original Second Edition.In it we have trailblazing diligent, enlightening and, at times, entertaining biographies of the next four Plantagenet Queens; from the saintly Eleanor of Provence to the scandalously cheating and treacherous Isabella of France, wife to the unhappy Edward II.

To many Europeans, perhaps to a great many, Islam is something of a puzzle. In the news media and on the Internet they witness scenes of great piety during the hajj in Mecca, but also witness scenes of great barbarity in that same holy city itself and in other great cities and the deserts of Islam. They can experience the glorious and highly sophisticated architectural, horticultural and culinary delights of Moorish Spain, but are then faced with evidence of corruption, depravity, and terrible slaughter within and by the Muslim communities in their own cities. And now, in the 21st century fear and hatred have returned to the streets in the cities of Europe. Modern Europeans are themselves experiencing that hate and those fears that once stalked the pages of their mediaeval history. And they ask why? This book seeks to understand Islam. Not to defeat it, but to answer the question - why? Is there anything in this religion that encourages the use of the barbaric violence that we are now witnessing in its name? Its conclusions may anger some, and irritate others, but they should surprise no one.

This is the first volume in a planned series on the Catholic Popes. It takes us from St. Peter in AD 32 to the papacy of Sylvester I and the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. This is the Age of Persecutions, in which many Christians died for their faith and many, many more suffered daily hostility and harassment at. A brief Introduction provides background by introducing the papacy and the Holy See and describing the main features that distinguish a Pope and define his place in the Catholic Hierarchy. The nutshell profiles of the first Popes are followed by a Concluding Essay which attempts to put the Age of Persecutions into its political and social contexts. Few reliable documents have survived from the period covered by this first volume. As result, we can only look through a gauze at the struggles endured and overcome in these first hostile centuries. Nevertheless, we can still see with sufficient clarity how the deeds and fates of these first 33 Popes laid the solid foundations for all that was to come. The Catholic Church is the largest and oldest Christian Church. It is the fount from which the eastern Orthodox Churches and all Christian sects have sprung. It is impossible to underestimate the influence of this Church on the birth and development Western, which is to say European, civilisation and culture. Despite its origins in 1st century Palestine, and despite its universality, the Catholic Church is a European Church at heart. Its centre has always been at Rome, the city it has done so much to build and beautify - and protect from outright destruction during the last dark days of the Second World War. The influence of this Church on the development of European history was immense. It was the influence of the Catholic Church that dragged Europe from the age of lawless and barbaric tribes into the regulated and, relatively, more humane age of the kingdoms of Europe. It was Irish Catholic monks who preserved for us the writings, the learning and the teachings of the ancient Greeks and Romans during the turbulent, frightening and almost catastrophic centuries of the so-called Dark Ages. Without these intellectual treasures, the glories of European culture and civilisation would have been impossible. Without these treasures, the Renaissance, that great outpouring of Thought, of Art, of Music, of Theatre, of Humanism and of Science would have been stillborn. And without the Catholic Church the glories of Thought, of Literature, of Art, of Architecture, and of Music in particular, would have been impossible. Through her direct participation, indirect inspiration and, most especially, liberal patronage she bequeathed us those things that we now treasure as signifiers of an educated and cultural man. Without her we would not today be able to enjoy the visual masterpieces of Michelangelo or Caravaggio or Leonardo da Vinci, for example, nor could we enjoy the Masses of Haydn and Mozart, Handel's Messiah or the Requiems of Faure, Brahms, Berlioz or Verdi, to give but a very few examples of the huge musical debt European Culture owes to the Catholic Church. Of course, the Catholic Church is a human institution and, like all human institutions, she has suffered, and suffers yet, from the whole kaleidoscope of human frailties, foibles and failings. To expect anything else would be unrealistic, to attempt to define the Church wholly in terms of those human weaknesses, as many in the sects that grew out of the Reformation still do, is utterly ridiculous. If those frailties, foibles and failings are to be found in the men who nurtured, developed and governed the Catholic Church, then so too are the faith, fidelity and fearlessness without which no human undertaking can survive. Of those men, the most conspicuous have been the 266 Popes who have led the Catholic Church from its beginning in AD 32 to the present day.

Paper, the umbrella, gunpowder, the compass, porcelain, the civil service, silk, printing, ice cream, football and pasta. These and much else were first given to the world by China. She also has longest continuous civilisation the world has ever known, stretching back for more than 4,600 years. For a little over 4,500 of those years she was ruled by a single emperor. Her history under those emperors stretches from the end of the New Stone Age, through the Bronze and Iron Ages right down to the early 20th century. We are fortunate that the Chinese began to keep detailed records of the lives of the emperors and events in their reigns from an early date. The first reliable written records in China appeared more than 3,200 years ago. For the 1,400 years before that, we have the records of an oral tradition which was written down at a later date. The period covered by this third volume in the Nutshell Series on Chinese Emperors covers the first two dynasties in what we can call recorded history. They are both the longest and one of the shortest of the dynasties, but between them they defined the basics of Chinese culture, politics and civilisation that are still alive and well in Modern China.

London's Blue plaques celebrate great figures of the past and the buildings that they inhabited. Originally proposed by William Ewart MP in the House of Commons in 1863, the scheme has been running for almost 150 years and is one of the oldest of its kind in the world. English Heritage was given control over the scheme in 1986 and between 10 and 15 new plaques are erected every year. There are currently more than 800 plaques spread throughout the metropolis except in the City of London and in Whitehall. The Blue Plaques have now not only become part of the tradition of London, but also a very special part. They are an adventure. They can be a planned adventure or a rollercoaster of discovery where the shades of London's past are waiting around practically every corner of the metropolis to delight and inform you. Part of the delight in walking the streets of London is the discovery of a Plaque on a house where someone famous once lived, and the sudden realisation that you are sharing a little bit of what was their daily view of the world. Less of a delight is the discovery of a plaque to someone whose name you are vaguely familiar with, but about whose life or achievements you can recall very little, or even nothing at all. Then there is the discovery of someone of whom you have never heard but who is tantalisingly and briefly described on the plaque itself. Many people, for example are brought up a little short to read "LOVELACE, Ada, Countess of (1815-1852) Pioneer of Computing, lived here" on a house on St. James' Square. A woman? A Countess? Computing? Yes indeed - the daughter of Lord Byron has the distinction of writing the world's first computer program! How many others learn that Sir Samuel Romilly, Law reformer, lived at 21 Russell Square without realising that he committed suicide in the library there a few days after the death of his wife?Experiences such as these provide stimuli to discover more, but very often, by the time we get home and have been distracted by other things, the stimulus has lost much of its power. Even if we make the effort to go to a library, or search the internet, there is no guarantee that we will find all the relevant information, even in a matter of days. This is where Blue Plaques in a Nutshell comes in.This series of books is aimed at both the habitué of London who walks the streets in fine weather or who sits on the top deck of a London bus on a rainy day, and the tourist who tries to cram as much of London as possible into a short visit. It is designed to provide the essential information about each blue plaque instantly. Indeed it does more than that. For the armchair traveller or historical explorer, it provides a handy and ready source of information on the doings and undoings of the residents of London who have made significant contributions to the history and culture of the world.The heart of London's Blue Plaques in a Nutshell lies in the aphorism - a short, pithy summing up of essential facts. The life and achievements of the subject of each plaque is summarised in a number of aphorisms, none of which contains more than 170 characters - including spaces! Crammed into this nutshell you will find the character, achievements, dreams realised, and dreams dashed, peccadilloes and humanity of the great and good (and the not so great and not so good) that once lived and thrived in the great metropolis that is London.Now revised and updated in 9 volumes, containing more than 220,000 words and 2,800 illustrations, this Third Edition includes all map and GPS coordinates to allow the modern traveller to precisely locate each plaque. Volume 3 is right up to date and presents unique portraits of the 149 poets, novelists, essayists, writers and historians who have been honoured with a Blue Plaque between 1867 and 2019.