Bøger af Jeremy Black

A wonderfully engaging, accessible introduction to war, from ancient times to the present and into the future

This innovative book analyzes the strategic dimensions of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, critiquing Napoleon's broader strategic weaknesses. The first history to look holistically at the strategies of the leading belligerents from a global perspective, it is an essential read for military professionals, students, and history buffs.

In the second volume of The Weight of Words Series, Jeremy Black continues his efforts to present and preserve Britain's literary genius. Its intelligence and enduring influence is in large part reliant on the underlining conservatism that has motivated authors such as Agatha Christie (Black's earlier subject) and Henry Fielding alike. Fielding's epic comic novel, Tom Jones, is unforgettable for many reasons, but the author must be credited with an aptitude for documenting contemporary cultural history and his contribution to a new species of writing. Black's treatment of Fielding draws to the fore a man who was of his time but not confined to it. "Philosophy in practice encompassed his stance as a man of action as well as a reflective writer of genius." Fielding is shown to provide across the breadth of his work extensive and invaluable commentary on issues as diverse as law and order, marriage, women, and the interplay of urban and rural life. Black, an historian, is here a student of storytelling and recovers Fielding's rich descriptions of the human heart and call to defy the vices with which circumstances might taunt it. Black has done a service along many fronts at once: the science of the novel and genre, the history of a people and the figure of a memorable writer.

In the second volume of The Weight of Words Series, Jeremy Black continues his efforts to present and preserve Britain's literary genius. Its intelligence and enduring influence is in large part reliant on the underlining conservatism that has motivated authors such as Agatha Christie (Black's earlier subject) and Henry Fielding alike. Fielding's epic comic novel, Tom Jones, is unforgettable for many reasons, but the author must be credited with an aptitude for documenting contemporary cultural history and his contribution to a new species of writing. Black's treatment of Fielding draws to the fore a man who was of his time but not confined to it. "Philosophy in practice encompassed his stance as a man of action as well as a reflective writer of genius." Fielding is shown to provide across the breadth of his work extensive and invaluable commentary on issues as diverse as law and order, marriage, women, and the interplay of urban and rural life. Black, an historian, is here a student of storytelling and recovers Fielding's rich descriptions of the human heart and call to defy the vices with which circumstances might taunt it. Black has done a service along many fronts at once: the science of the novel and genre, the history of a people and the figure of a memorable writer.

Akkadian, comprising the Babylonian, Assyrian and Old Akkadian dialects, is the earliest known Semitic language, attested from the middle of the 3rd millenium B.C. until the time of Christ. It was widely adopted in the ancient Near East as a written vehicle for scholarship, literature, legal and diplomatic affairs. It is the language of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Code of Hammurapi, the inscriptions of the kings of Assyria and Babylonia and countless legal and administrative documents.A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian has been prepared for the convenience of students and scholars on the basis of Wolfram von Sodens Akkadisches Handwörterbuch updated with reference to the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary and other sources. It aims to include all certainly attested words with variant forms, dialect and period distribution, logographic writings and English meanings (but not textual citations). A list of roots assists in tracking down the right entries.

The next in this series of admirably concise yet nevertheless comprehensive titles looks at the history of all Americans as well as America; its environmental history and its linkage to economic history; the political shaping of America; and America in the world, from being a colony to post-Cold War America.Black examines the environmental history of America and its linkage to economic history, crucially, the clearing of forests; the spread of agriculture; mineral, coal and iron extraction; industrialisation; urbanisation; and current and growing climate-crisis concerns.He explores the political shaping of America: indigenous American polities; free European and unfree African settlements; the creation of an American State, and its successes and failures from 1783 to 1861; Civil War; democratisation; the rise of the federal Government from the 1930s; the Civil Rights movement from the 1950s onwards, and tensions in more recent governance. The book considers America in the World: as a pre-colonial and colonised space; as a newly-independent power, then a rising international one, the Cold War and the USA as the sole superpower in the post-Cold-War world. These key themes are tackled chronologically for the sake of clarity, beginning with the geological creation of North America, human settlement and native American cultures to 1500; the arrival of Europeans and enslaved Africans to 1770 - the Spanish and French in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida, the English and French, and the Dutch and Swedes further north.The focus then shifts to settler conflicts with native Americans and between European powers leading to a British-dominated North America by 1770. Then the end of European rule and the foundation of an American trans-continental state. The section dealing with the years from 1848 to 1880 looks at the Civil War between North and South, reconstruction and the creation of a new society.Between 1880 and 1920, the United States became an industrial powerhouse and an international power, also a colonial power - the Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico - and a participant in the First World War.The interwar years, 1921 to 1945, brought turmoil: the Roaring Twenties; the growth of Hollywood; Prohibition; jazz; the Great Depression and the New Deal; finally the Second World War. 1945 to 1968 was the American Age, brimming with confidence and success as the world's leading power, but also the ongoing struggle for civil rights. Subsequent years to 1992 brought crisis and recovery: Watergate, the Reagan years and the USA as the sole world superpower.In bringing the book right up to the present day, Black looks at factors that divide American society and economy, though it remains a country of tremendous energy.

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Looking beyond the trappings of Stuart romance

Fans of Sherlock Holmes will delight to investigate Victorian England, a world where crimes large and small abound and where dark corners and well-lit drawing rooms alike hide villainy.Through the enduring eye of Sherlock Holmes, noted historian Jeremy Black traces how Holmes and his milieu evolved in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle¿s books and how Holmes continues to resonate today. Black explores the context of Doyle¿s ideas and stories and why they struck such a chord with readers in London, and ultimately the world. He portrays a complex man with eclectic interests, from soccer to spiritualism, from cricket to divorce-law reform. Standing twice for Parliament, Doyle was a committed meritocrat whose political experiences and values were expressed through his writings. Reading the Holmes stories through the lens of Doyle¿s multifaceted career, Black throws fresh light on the values expressed in them and how Holmes would have been perceived at the time. He traces the imperial strand in the Holmes stories and his treatment of America and Europe. Drawing on a masterly knowledge both of Doyle¿s era and his writings, this entertaining and wide-ranging book uses the Holmes stories to bring Victorian England to vibrant life, a world where crimes large and small abound and where dark corners and well-lit drawing rooms alike hide villainy. Holmes was a hero and an inspiration for many a character who redefined the idea of detection and the detective, a private man of great public importance. Here is his story.

Bringing back a classic work on the American War for Independence

An examination of the British Army during the long 18th century, how it became a world-operating force and its part in imperial expansion and preservation.

A brilliantly concise history of London, with a distinctive perspective focusing on the city in its national and, more importantly, international contexts, rather than London itself. Why did London become the foremost international city, how did it sustain that position, and what is happening to it now?

Casting aside conventional narratives of The Great War, Jeremy Black returns to a vast range of original sources and investigates not only the key events of the war, but its consequences in restructuring the old order. Black also considers the struggle not only in its historical context, but also how it has been remembered and memorialised, especially as the generation who experienced it firsthand are passing away.Now in paperback, this book has been updated with a foreword and afterword to consider recent developments.

Beginning with an overview of the age of Dickens, Professor Jeremy Black guides the reader through the biography and writings of the great man to show how his work not only expressed his experience of Victorian England, but also defined it, for his contemporaries and for generations to come. In some ways for us, Victorian England simply is Dickens' England. Professor Black considers London as the centre of all but also examines Dickens' effect on concepts of gender and social structure. Then there is government - from the Circumlocution Office to Britain as the supreme imperial power. There is also a valuable account of Dickens' relationship with America. Dickens describes a culture - popular, middle and lite - and at the same time creates one. It takes a historian of Professor Black's standing to differentiate between the two and show how they inter-react.

This book presents an insightful and thoroughly entertaining exploration of the politics of the Bond books and films. Class, gender, violence, sex, race-all are themes that Black scrutinizes through ongoing shifts in characterization and plot. His informed analysis provides a fascinating history of the enduring and evolving appeal of James Bond.

From the Great Exhibition's showcasing of British national achievement in 1851 to the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Stratford in 2012 and on to Brexit, an insightful exploration of the transformation of modern Britain.

A concise history of the Caribbean's long and fascinating history, from pre-contact civilisations to the present day This is a concise history, intended for travellers, but of inestimable value to anyone looking for an overview of the Caribbean and its mainland coastal states, with a focus on the past few centuries. The history of the Caribbean does not make much sense without factoring in the cities - Pensacola, New Orleans, Galveston - and the ambitions of the states on its continental shores, notably the United States. This account is grounded in a look at the currents and channels of the sea, and its constraints, such as the Mosquito Coast, followed by the history of 'pre-contact' civilisations, focusing on the Maya and the Toltec Empire.With the arrival of the Europeans, from the late fifteenth century to the early years of the seventeenth century, the story becomes one of exploration, conquest and settlement. Black charts the rise of slave economies and the Caribbean's place in the Atlantic world, also the arrival of the English - Hawkins and Drake - to challenge the Spanish. He examines the sugar and coffee slave economies of the English, French, Spanish and Dutch, also the successful rebellion in Haiti in the eighteenth century, and how the West Indies were further transformed by the Louisiana Purchase, the American conquest of Florida and the incorporation of Texas.He discusses the impact of Bolivar's rebellion in Spanish America, the end of slavery in the British Caribbean, and war between Mexico and America; also the defeat of the South by the Union, the American takeover of the Panama Canal project from France, and the Spanish-American War.The first half of the twentieth century focuses on growing US power: intervention in Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti and the Dominican Republic; Cuba as an American protectorate, and civil wars in Mexico.The Cold War brought new tensions and conflict to the region, but the same period also saw the rise of the leisure industry. The last part of the book looks at the Caribbean today - political instability in Venezuela and Colombia, crime in Mexico, post-Castro Cuba - and the region's future prospects.

A concise, accessible account of strategy and the Second World War. How the war was won . . . and lost..In 1941, the Second World War became global, when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union; Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor; and Germany declared war on the United States.In this timely book, which fills a real gap, Black engages with the strategic issues of the time - as they developed chronologically, and interacted - and relates these to subsequent debates about the choices made, revealing their continued political resonances.Beginning with Appeasement and the Soviet-German pact as key strategic means, Black examines the consequences of the fall of France for the strategies of all the powers. He shows how Allied strategy-making was more effective at the Anglo-American level than with the Soviet Union, not only for ideological and political reasons, but also because the Americans and British had a better grasp of the global dimension.He explores how German and Japanese strategies evolved as the war went badly for the Axis powers, and discusses the extent to which seeking to mould the post-war world informed Allied strategic choices from 1943 onwards, and the role these played in post-war politics, notably in the Cold War. Strategy was a crucial tool not only for conducting the war; it remains the key to understanding it today.

A concise look at the evolution of one of our most crucial transport and trade routes that will open your eyes to its vivid history. Jeremy Black expertly spotlights those who embarked to cross the ocean over the last 550 years and how it came to be established as the ocean for the world.

A concise and wonderfully readable history of Germany through the ages In A Brief History of Germany, renowned historian Jeremy Black questions how the country we know today came to be, chronicling the events that shaped its past, present and future in a fascinating new way. Black chronicles the defining moments of centuries gone by and unlocks the places and people that formed Germany with stories of its society and culture. Whether you're planning your next trip to Germany or simply want to widen your knowledge, this intriguing look at its history is an essential read.

In Tank Warfare, prominent military historian Jeremy Black offers a comprehensive global account of the history of tanks and armored warfare in the 20th and 21st centuries.

';[A] scholarly overview of military technology throughout historystarting roughly in the 15th century and extending into the future . . . insightful.'Publishers Weekly In this engaging book, Jeremy Black argues that technology neither acts as an independent variable nor operates without major limitations. This includes its capacity to obtain end results, as technology's impact is far from simple and its pathways are by no means clear. After considering such key conceptual points, Black discusses important technological advances in weaponry and power projection from sailing warships to aircraft carriers, muskets to tanks, balloons to unmanned dronesin each case, taking into account what difference these advances made. He addresses not only firepower but also power projection and technologies of logistics, command, and control. Examining military technologies in their historical context and the present centered on the Revolution in Military Affairs and Military Transformation, Black then forecasts possible future trends. ';Clear, concise, and thoughtful. An eminently readable synthesis of historical literature on technology and war.'John France, author of Perilous Glory: The Rise of Western Military Power ';An interesting, thought provoking work by a major military historian . . . whose depth and wide range of knowledge across the entire sweep of world military history is without parallel.... Those who read this book closely will be richly rewarded for it is a mine of useful information and grist for discussion.'Spencer C. Tucker, author of The European Powers in the First World War ';A most useful introduction to a very complex subject, and particularly valuable for its notes and references to other works. Provocative and vigorously argued . . . Highly recommended.'Choice

"Assembled by the same team responsible for A History of America in 100 Maps by Susan Schulten, this book offers a selection of 100 maps, all presented in full color, that shaped the course of World War II. Alongside the maps, historian Jeremy Black offers context and explanations drawing on his long career thinking about war and maps. World War II was a uniquely difficult war to map: it was fought across an unprecedented geographical range, through the air as well as by land and sea, and at a faster tempo than any previous conflict. Creating maps for the military to use as tools, as well as for governments and others to use in spreading their messages about the war, presented new challenges to mapmakers. But the development of new technologies such as aerial photography and all-weather instrument flying aided their efforts, and the scale of map production during the war was astonishing. The maps in this book are drawn from the British Library's collections as well as other sources across the world and organized thematically. In addition to military operations, tactics, and strategy on all sides, the maps illustrate the geopolitical context for war as well as reporting and propaganda efforts by the Allies and the Axis countries during and after the war"--