From praise for the 1965 edition: Allan Gilbert is unquestionably the most accurate and reliable translator of Machiavelli into English; the publication of this edition is an altogether happy occasion. Students of the history of political thought owe a particular debt of gratitude to Allan Gilbert.”—Dante Germino, The Journal of Politics “A most remarkable achievement.”—Felix Gilbert, Renaissance Quarterly
A prize-winning, magisterial history of World War I from the perspective of the defeated Central Powers For the Central Powers, the First World War started with high hopes for an easy victory. But those hopes soon deteriorated as Germany's attack on France failed, Austria-Hungary's armies suffered catastrophic losses, and Britain's ruthless blockade brought both nations to the brink of starvation. The Central powers were trapped in the Allies' ever-tightening Ring of Steel. In this compelling history, Alexander Watson retells the war from the perspective of its losers: not just the leaders in Berlin and Vienna, but the people of Central Europe. The war shattered their societies, destroyed their states, and imparted a poisonous legacy of bitterness and violence. A major reevaluation of the First World War, Ring of Steel is essential for anyone seeking to understand the last century of European history.
This influential study of the relationship between the prices of gold and other commodities was originally published in 1935. In it the authors attributed the initial cause of the great depression in the US to the reestablishment of the gold standard in many European countries and resulting deflation. The authors' recommendations were successfully implemented by Franklin D. Roosevelt.
On the eve of the war in August 1914, Great Britain and Germany possessed the two greatest navies the world had ever seen: two fleets of dreadnoughts – gigantic 'castles of steel' able to hurl massive shells at an enemy miles away – were ready to test their terrible power against each other. They skirmished across the globe before Germany, suffocated by an implacable naval blockade, decided to definitively strike against the British ring of steel. The result was Jutland, a titanic clash of fifty-eight dreadnoughts, each holding of a thousand men. When the German High Seas Fleet retreated, the Kaiser unleashed unrestricted U-boat warfare, which, in its indiscriminate violence, brought a reluctant America into the war: the German effort to "seize the trident" led to the fall of the German empire. Massie's portrayals of Winston Churchill, the British admirals Fisher, Jellicoe, and Beatty, and the Germans Scheer, Hipper, and Tirpitz are stunning in their veracity and artistry.
The last Pacific campaign of World War II was the most violent on record. Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher’s Task Force 58 carriers had conducted air strikes on mainland Japan and supported the Iwo Jima landings, but his aviators were sorely tested once the Okinawa campaign commenced on 1 April 1945. Rain of Steel follows Navy and Marine carrier aviators in the desperate air battles to control the kamikazes directed by Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki. The latter would unleash ten different Kikusui aerial suicide operations, one including a naval force built around the world’s most powerful battleship, the 71,000-ton Yamato. These battles are related largely through the words and experiences of some of the last living U.S. fighter aces of World War II. More than 1,900 kamikaze sorties—and thousands more traditional attack aircraft—would be launched against the U.S. Navy’s warships, radar picket ships, and amphibious vessels during the Okinawa campaign. In this time, Navy, Marine, and Army Air Force pilots would claim some 2,326 aerial victories. The most successful four-man fighter division in U.S. Navy history would be crowned during the fight against Ugaki’s kamikazes. The Japanese named the campaign tetsu no ame (“rain of steel”), often referred to in English as “typhoon of steel.”
Ed Kuepper's history as a rock pioneer with The Saints and Laughing Clowns means that his albums of the early 1990s represent a remapping of the singer-songwriter concept. His classic Honey Steel's Gold shares a looseness with blues and folk recordings of the 1940s and 1950s, capturing performances that take detours, stretch and contract, wax and wane, such as the album's hit The Way I Made You Feel." Honey Steel's Gold is a landscape to be immersed in, to get lost in. It provides a space not where questions are answered but where we might stop and get a drink; an environment that provides solace, but not platitudes; where we can share a wry smile about the downsides of the human condition rather than attempt the illusion of blocking them out completely. This study incorporates a consideration of Kuepper's iconoclastic career, at odds with the music industry and the grunge era into which the album was released. Beyond the apparent facts, though, there is interpretation, speculation, and attempts to meet Honey Steel's Gold on its own terms in some imaginary place.
Discourses on Livy is the founding document of modern republicanism, and Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov have provided the definitive English translation of this classic work. Faithful to the original Italian text, properly attentive to Machiavelli's idiom and subtlety of thought, it is eminently readable. With a substantial introduction, extensive explanatory notes, a glossary of key words, and an annotated index, the Discourses reveals Machiavelli's radical vision of a new science of politics, a vision of "new modes and orders" that continue to shape the modern ethos. "[Machiavelli] found in Livy the means to inspire scholars for five centuries. Within the Discourses, often hidden and sometimes unintended by their author, lie the seeds of modern political thought. . . . [Mansfield and Tarcov's] translation is careful and idiomatic."—Peter Stothard, The Times "Translated with painstaking accuracy—but also great readability."—Weekly Standard "A model of contemporary scholarship and a brave effort at Machiavelli translation that allows the great Florentine to speak in his own voice."—Choice
In the four and a half centuries since Machiavelli’s death, no single and unanimously accepted interpretation of his ideas has succeeded in imposing itself upon the lively debate over the meaning of his works. Yet there has never been any doubt about the fundamental importance of Machiavelli’s contribution to Western political theory.The Portable Machiavelli brings together the complete texts of The Prince, Belfagor, and Castruccio Castracani, newly translated by Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa especially for this volume. In addition, the editors include an abridged version of The Discourses; a play, The Mandrake Root, in its entirety; seven private letters; and selections from The Art of War and The History of Florence.
