The General in Winter
The General in Winter

Author: Frances Harris

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-06-29

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 0192523333

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'The glories of the Age of Anne' -- the union of England and Scotland to form 'this island of Britain', and its establishment as a European and a global power -- were the achievements of two men above all: Queen Anne's captain-general, John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, and her Lord Treasurer, Sidney, first Earl of Godolphin, of whom it was said that each 'was the greatest of his kind that hardly any age has afforded'. Their partnership not only embodied the emerging military-fiscal state; it was also a close and lifelong friendship which fully encompassed Marlborough's beautiful and tempestuous wife Sarah. Tracing the partnership as it proved itself in a succession of victorious summer campaigns in the field and bitterly contested 'winter campaigns' at court and in parliament connects and illuminates aspects of a complex period which are often studied in isolation. But was the partnership in the end too successful, too self-contained, too mutually supportive; a dangerous concentration of power and a threat to the queen and the constitution? 'Rebellion and blood' were always undercurrents of the glories of the last Stuart reign. A troubled dynasty would come to an end with Queen Anne's life and a contested succession depended on the outcome of the European war that occupied almost the whole of her reign. This is a story of operatic intensity: of sovereignty and ambition, glory and defeat, but, above all, of love and friendship proved in the hardest use. Its intense human interest and audible voices illuminate a conflicted period which helped to determine the course of modern world.

Catalogue
Catalogue

Author: Calcutta (India). Imperial library

Publisher:

Published: 1904

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13:

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Money for Nothing
Money for Nothing

Author: Thomas Levenson

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2020-08-18

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 0812998472

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The sweeping story of the world’s first financial crisis: “an astounding episode from the early days of financial markets that to this day continues to intrigue and perplex historians . . . narrative history at its best, lively and fresh with new insights” (Liaquat Ahamed, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lords of Finance) A Financial Times Economics Book of the Year ● Longlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award In the heart of the Scientific Revolution, when new theories promised to explain the affairs of the universe, Britain was broke, facing a mountain of debt accumulated in war after war it could not afford. But that same Scientific Revolution—the kind of thinking that helped Isaac Newton solve the mysteries of the cosmos—would soon lead clever, if not always scrupulous, men to try to figure a way out of Britain’s financial troubles. Enter the upstart leaders of the South Sea Company. In 1719, they laid out a grand plan to swap citizens’ shares of the nation’s debt for company stock, removing the burden from the state and making South Sea’s directors a fortune in the process. Everybody would win. The king’s ministers took the bait—and everybody did win. Far too much, far too fast. The following crash came suddenly in a rush of scandal, jail, suicide, and ruin. But thanks to Britain’s leader, Robert Walpole, the kingdom found its way through to emerge with the first truly modern, reliable, and stable financial exchange. Thomas Levenson’s Money for Nothing tells the unbelievable story of the South Sea Bubble with all the exuberance, folly, and the catastrophe of an event whose impact can still be felt today.