I was delighted by 'Britain Then & Now,' Philip Ziegler's book on the amazing Francis Frith landscape photos of Victorian Britain, most of which have been updated by superb contemporary color landscape photos by John Cleare, or by landscape views taken in the same position several decades apart, say in 1900, 1920 & 1950. I have almost never seen this 'then & now' format used for sites in Britain, though it has been very frequently used for sites here in the United States. The changes to the landscape over so many decades are stunning, often shocking. Discover, for example, what is hidden behind the garish neon signage of Piccadilly Circus !! Not a book which is likely to please defenders of advertising, modernism, or "the ubiquitous motor vehicle," but which will not only please, but delight the rest of us. Architecture is supposed to be "the most public of the Fine Arts," yet one has to wonder how respectfully Britain's marvelous legacy of this artwork has been treated, after reading this volume.

After reading many books from Osbert Sitwell and buying first editions where I found them only now I have a perfect idea about who and what the man was. A splendid book which it was oimpossible to close after beginning. Everybody interested in this family and man should begin with this work. It is well written, humorous in a convincing way and perfectly thrustworthy and gives you by the way for the most important books "the critical heritage".I am sure every reader will after finishing this books start buying those which he has not been reading. Splendid.

I mark this book as a required text to my students in my Cultural Studies Course.

Despite, or rather because of it's professed limitation to British Cultural Studies, Turner demonstrates a lot of sensitivity to what is and what is not British Cultural Studies, making any reader immediately aware of how other Cultural Studies traditions may differ. His extremely cogent and clear account takes the reader easily into the heart of Cultural Studies- what quarrels does British Cultural Studies have with other disciplines and what is so unique about its orientation as a discipline?

Turner's is a well-summarized, well-written introduction to the tradition of so-called critical cultural studies. This can draw a lot of attention from undergrads to phd-to-bes, from all across the social science and hmanities fields--such as mass media, communication, literature, aesthetics, philosophy, criticism, popular culture. If you believe that there's something missing in the US mainstream social science and humanities, this is the book you must start with.

This is the most complete Royal Commemorative book I have yet to come across. It shows color and black and white photos of Royal Commemorative collectables past and present. With descriptive information and value. I am a avid collector and I consider this book to be my Bible. A must have for anyone who collects or is simply interested in the British Monarchy.

If you have any interest in the Royal Family, in history, or in items commemorating significant events relating to the Royal Family, then this is a book you simply can't do without. Whether you're a collector, an enthusiast, or simply curious about the vast spectrum of items available, you will find this book a sheer delight. Color plates and an extensive black & white collector and price guide make this book invaluable for collectors, appraisers, or anyone interested in the growing fascination with the Royal Family - and the investment opportunities associated with commemorative items. Doug Flynn and Alan Bolton have set a benchmark that others will struggle to ever improve upon. Highly recommended.

I say surprisingly good because I approached this book with some trepidation, there seem to have been an awful lot of books 'explaining' the Georgian Age and this period of history generally. Colley had also picked out a very broad and dynamic period to try to sum up in a relatively limited space. However, I was very pleasantly surprised with this book which I think provides an asset to anybody interested in this period. Colley shows herself to have a very good grasp of her material, but she also manages to bring in a broad range of information - from political movements to ballads, to satires to art - to make some thought-provoking conclusions.

As a social history it is well written but cannot hope to thoroughly cover every issue from the chosen era - a period defined from the Act of Union in 1707 until the start of the Victorian age in 1837. Of course this period of history includes some of the biggest changes in British culture and social structure - the rapid decline of disease, the huge jump in population, the industrial revolution with all its influences on roads, canals, post and so on. Colley instead has limited herself to some major issues and the changes - she divides these subjects up into 8 broad areas, Protestants, Profits, Peripheries, Dominance, Majesty, Womanpower, Manpower and Victories.

Having recently read the Amanda Foreman's biography of Georgiana, 5th Duchess of Devonshire - I was most interested in Colley's discussion under the section on Womanpower, on the role of women in society using the active role of Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire and the role of the caricaturists and satirists of the day and I thought Colley managed to shed new light on the subject and women's role at this time.

However, there were some disappointments - no doubt due to the size of the book versus the topic covered - some things were treated with less thoroughness than they deserved. I felt for instance the problems of the Militia was dealt with in too short a manner. It really was predominantly the post-1803 problems of militia with some minor references to the Militia acts of the previous century. Why is this important? Well the militia did provide a vital role for law and order in a country without a police force, and that the British public were very reluctant to have an armed force at all - however given that a large proportion of the period of this book (1707-1837) was spent at War with France then I think that this subject deserved a bit more thorough treatment.

The book is illustrated in B/W pictures which intersperse the text occassionally. It is very well footnoted and all in all I think an excellent asset for anyone interested in this period.

Linda Colley demonstrates her abilities as a top-shelf social historian in "Britons." Her command of widely diverse source material is remarkable--her presentation of popular ballads, cartoons, and broadsheets is both delightful and interesting. However, in her rush to demonstrate the consensual nature of "Britishness," she glosses over some very difficult issues (like the deliberately omitted question of how the Irish never became "British") and assumes away some others (she exaggerates the importance of the Stuart threat after 1746, and attributes Catholic Emancipation too much to 'popular demand' and too little, as Wellington understood as Prime Minister, to the fact that the Irish would surely fight for it). Although this is an admirable piece of scholarship, it fails to recognize that the peoples of the 'Celtic fringe' were generally dragooned into being British; their early participation in empire-building was more a result of escaping the poverty of Ireland or Scotland than of some newly minted transcendent patriotism. Nevertheless, this book is well worth the read, albeit with a large grain of critical salt.

Cris Shore has written a quite outstanding book on the European Union, showing how its leaders aim to create a single European state.

The EU's founders warned us that they sought to destroy the sovereignty and independence of its member states. Jean Monnet wrote, "Everyday realities will make it possible to form the political union which is the goal of our Community and to establish the United States of Europe." Konrad Adenauer said that the original proposal for pooling French and German steel production was "first and foremost political, not economic. This plan was to be the beginning of a federal structure of Europe."

Later, Chancellor Kohl said, "In Maastricht we laid the foundation stone for the completion of the European Union. The European Union Treaty introduces a new and decisive stage in the process of European Union which within a few years will lead to the creation of what the founding fathers of modern Europe dreamed after the last war: the United States of Europe."

In practice, the EU has already gone far towards creating a new state, although it has signally failed to create one that is honest and democratic. As Shore writes, "To most critical observers it seems quite evident that the European Community has acquired most of the characteristics of a state, however much some might wish to deny this." And, "with its single currency, its Central Bank and treaty control over money supply and borrowing, the EU takes on the powers of a sovereign state, albeit a transnational state without a democratic government." As Pascal Lamy, Delors' chef de cabinet, admitted, "The people weren't ready to agree to integration, so you had to get on without telling them too much about what was happening."

The Committee of Independent Experts reported in 1999 that fraud, cronyism, mismanagement and cover-ups were rife in the European Commission, summarising, "It is becoming difficult to find anyone who has even the slightest sense of responsibility." Shore concludes that the Report "exposed ... the extraordinary degree to which patronage, fraud and corruption ... had become established, even institutionalised, within the Commission."

Chris Shore's "Building Europe" is an innovative study of the European Union, and should be taken seriously. Shore is one of the first to jump in the post-EMU debate: now that Europe has almost completed Economic Union, what are the expectations, challenges, and impossibilities with regard to further integration? Shore offers a systematic discussion of the role of 'culture' in the European Union. How has a European identity been created, or not!, among both citizens and civil servants in Brussels? Shore turns out to be quite critical in the end. Europeanism is not strongly rooted among the peoples of Europe. And the elites in Brussels are far from what a perfect European bureaucrat must be like. He concludes that the goal of European federalism, which so strongly depends on some form of common European identity, may be one bridge too far. To conclude, Shore's informed and refreshing perspective on the actual challenges to European integration forms an important contribution to the debate. Anyone who wants to think of tomorrow's Europe may probably want to read "Building Europe", no matter if you agree or disagree with Shore's final conclusions.

The weapons that won the Cold War include ICBMs and nuclear bombs flown on B-52s. These were threats, but never had to be deployed into action. But one weapon that did go into action was hotels. Hilton hotels. This is the surprising demonstration in _Building the Cold War: Hilton International Hotels and Modern Architecture_ (University of Chicago Press) by Annabel Jane Wharton. What is even more surprising is that Hilton hotels did not just participate in the capitalist boom that eventually dislodged the Soviet Union. They were deliberately placed, designed, and run to make a profit, to be sure, but also to dislodge the Red Threat. This is not just the author's speculation. Conrad Hilton made it explicit: "Let me say right here, that we operate hotels abroad for the same reason we operate them in this country - to make money for our stockholders... However, we feel that if we really believe in what we are all saying about liberty, about Communism, about happiness, that we, as a nation, must exercise our great strength and power for good against evil. If we really believe this, it is up to each of us, our organizations and our industries, to contribute to this objective with all the resources at our command." He was careful not to disparage our country's military, but said, "I will tell you frankly, satellites and H-bombs will not get the job done."

Wharton has done an excellent job of giving a broad history of the overseas Hilton, while giving case studies of specific ones. The Istanbul Hilton, for instance, had all the usual amenities, like lawns (completely foreign to the area), tennis courts, and a swimming pool. It had the extraordinary feature, common in foreign Hiltons, of iced water piped into every room. However, the marquee covering cars that drove up to the entrance was a wavy horizontal structure that was referred to as the "flying carpet." The interior lobby had a series of domes in the ceiling, a bow to mosque designs, and there were teakwood screens and Turkish carpets. Work by local artisans decorated the public spaces. Nonetheless, you can see in the pictures (and in this book, there are many useful ones) that the Istanbul Hilton is still a concrete, metal, and glass box like nothing else around it. Old hotels concentrated on public rooms inside; the Hiltons looked out, with lots of glass in every room to supply a view. The view was carefully chosen. In Istanbul, it faced East, toward the Soviet Union, daring those Commies to look American modernity and wealth in the eyes.

Wharton is a historian of medieval art. Her family used some of these hotels when she was growing up, and she has returned to them to give an architectural history of the Hilton overseas effort. (She could not visit two Hiltons now lost, the one in Havana and the one in Tehran.) It is a remarkable history, no longer active because the Cold War is over, and because others followed Hiltons into the modernism market. The Hilton hotels still exist, but they are just hotels now, not unique as architecture nor as Cold War armaments. They shaped the way American visitors viewed foreign capitals, and boosted American economic (and therefore political) policies. Conrad Hilton may not have won the Cold War, but he did more than plenty of the generals.

Annabel Wharton has written a stunning and brilliant book about the US, Europe and the Middle East during the 1950s and 1960s, the height of the Cold War. She tells the story of how Conrad Hilton and his hotel empire participated in the rebuilding of Western Europe and key spots in the Middle East in the wake of WWII by establishing the Hilton International hotels--architectural monuments to modernism--as "little Americas" away from home for US businessmen, tourists, and diplomats. She explores Hilton hotels in London, Berlin, Istanbul. Rome, Cairo , Athens and other locales. Wharton is a smart, witty writer, and this book is a great pleasure to read.

This new edition of the classic Bulfinch's Mythology is excellent. It has retained all of Bulfinch's old texts and introductions to myths and their histories, but it has also added some new introductory material. This material, much having to do with Bulfinch's own life and education helps to bring light into the context for which Bulfinch was writing. For example, did you know that Bulfinch originally began writing mythology pieces for magazine entertainment? There is also much information in the new introductions about Bulfinch's education and the place that he held (or rather, didn't hold) within Boston's then extremely rigid social strata. The editor also provides an interesting look at why Bulfinch told the myths in the way he did and compares the sources that Bulfinch used to those of his contemporaries (Hawthorne, for example). It really is very interesting reading.

Of course, this edition of Bulfinch's mythology still contains all of the wonderful myths that our society has come to know through this book, along with Bulfinch's original introductions to each chapter.

The book is large and heavy, therefore not a great traveling companion. Still, it more than makes up for it with content. If you keep this book out on your shelf and read a small bit of myth every day, you will never be bored or lack for reading material again.

Bulfinch's Mythology is, simply put, the best. I cannot think of another book I simply enjoyed reading more. It deals with classical myth, the tales of Charlemagne and Arthur, some Celtic myths... it is an invaluable companion to someone who is studying cultural history, or just as an eminently readable book. It serves as an admirable companion to Frazer's "The Golden Bough", giving some context to much of his writing.

This was just a great book. No books that I've read on this subject have been quite so compelling!

The author mesmerizes you with the simplicity and eloquence of her writing. She moves you with her childhood, her courage in the camps and the power of her spirit in returning to choose life again.

This book is a gem for historical gamers.

The book contains a description of selected battles and campaigns for the Byzanitine Empire during the 5th to 12th centuries. Persians, Arabs, Slavs, Rus, and Turks are all included. Lot's of background information

"The Byzantine Wars" is a well written, edited, and professionally presented tome. With smooth prose, the book is engaging. I throughly enjoyed reading it. Many diagrams, maps, and photographs are included and clearly support the presentation. I especially liked the contemporary photos of the battlefields and fortresses. Although, the maps will be familiar to Haldon's past readers. The only real drawback to the work is the author's bibliograhic style. Primary and secondary sources are listed for each section, but the author fails to consistently distinguish between what the sources say and his own conclusions.

This book is especially recommended this book for gamers. Scenarios on the hoof. "The Byzantine Wars" helps fill a gaping hole in Byzantine military history. I only wish it was less like a super Osprey book.

I bought my copy through the mail from On Military Matters in New Jersey. ...Buy one now. After all if the book sells well, perhaps they'll make more.

This short book gives a strategic, operational, and tactical overview of the Byzantine army in action. It is not a book about the Byzantine army as an institution; even the themes are given a relatively brief look. Byzantine society and religion are only peripherally mentioned. The first campaign studied is Dara (530) ; the last is Myriokephalon (1176). There is an easy to follow description of the Yarmuk campaign against the Arabs. Several battles against the Bulgars are also described with clarity. About half the battles discussed are Byzantine defeats. This book, focused as it is, goes a long way toward filling a gap in Byzantine studies.

I believed the only other reviewer, bought the 6th edition, and am glad I did. My wife and I recently spent 3 weeks in the Northern half of Spain, much of it in regions that aren't covered in the standard guides. This book provided accurate, practical information and much more. With a lovely British sense of humor, it gave an insightful history and background to Spain that added a lot to our enjoyment of the sights we were seeing. I will take it with me the next time I go to Spain.

These two are the world's finest writers when it comes to travel guides. This book is not your average "Visit this site when you are in this city" kind of travel guide. Rather it is a guide filled with history and an understanding of each of Spain's regions that you would never expect to find in a travel guide. I read it before I visited Spain and have read it over and over since I returned.