Showing results by author "Charles River" in All Categories

The Sino-Japanese Wars: The History and Legacy of the Early 20th Century Conflicts That Made Japan the Dominant Power in Asia examines what brought about the wars, the most notorious events, and the important aftermath.

The Apache of the American Southwest have achieved almost legendary status for their fierceness and their tenacity in fighting the US Army. Names like Nana, Cochise, and Geronimo are synonymous with bravery and daring, and the tribe had that reputation long before the Americans arrived. Indeed, among all the Native American tribes, the Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans learned the hard way that the warriors of the Apache were perhaps the fiercest in North America. Based in the Southwest, the Apache fought all three in Mexico and the American Southwest.

The pre-modern world, especially the ancient world, is full of many mysteries, riddles, and enigmas. Nearly 2,500 years after the Golden Age of Athens, people across the world today continue to be fascinated by the Ancient Greeks, but the Greeks looked up to the Minoans. Questions persist over the origins of the Minoan civilization, the end of the civilization, and substantial parts of their history, including their religion and buildings. All of this is largely because their written language, known today as “Linear A”, remains undeciphered....

Modern perceptions of Classical Greece are almost invariably based on Athens and Sparta, but Corinth was also a key city-state in antiquity. When St. Paul visited in 51 CE, the Corinth he saw was actually a relatively new city, having been built a little over 100 years previously, but he found a city five times larger than Athens at that time and one which was the capital of a prosperous province.

Many ancient civilizations have influenced and inspired people in the 21st century. The Greeks and Romans continue to fascinate the West today. But of all the world's civilizations, none has intrigued people more than the Mayans, whose culture, astronomy, language, and mysterious disappearance all continue to captivate people.

Attempting to cover all the forms the "Goddess of Love" encapsulates is no small affair. The roles she played in romance, marriage, procreation, and all of the other desires of humanity were myriad, but the aim of this book is to paint a slightly different, perhaps more esoteric version of Aphrodite from the usual image of her in mythology books.

Although it's no longer well known as a flashpoint, few things were as controversial during the late 19th century as the Haymarket Affair. Depending on one's perspective, the riots and the violence that ensued were the result of anarchist terrorists attacking law enforcement authorities with a homemade bomb that was detonated during a large public event, killing a police officer and wounding several more.

Windsor Castle is one of the most significant residences of the British Monarchy ever conceived, and it has continued to maintain that perfect balance between ancient traditions and modern needs. Built by a conqueror to defend his new domains, it now hosts tourist groups from around the world. The castle has often served as a refuge, with its early battlements offering shelter to royals for centuries, while the castle helped shield others from the attacks of French kings and the Nazis.

The British East India Company served as one of the key players in the formation of the British Empire. From its origins as a trading company struggling to keep up with its superior Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish competitors to its tenure as the ruling authority of the Indian subcontinent to its eventual hubristic downfall, the East India Company serves as a lens through which to explore the much larger economic and social forces that shaped the formation of a global British Empire.

In 353 BCE, when King Mausolus of Halicarnassus passed away, his sister and queen Artemisia was inconsolable, but she found a way to honor him through finishing a project that they had started together during his life: the construction of a mausoleum that was so marvelous it would later be considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The Vandals: The History and Legacy of Antiquity's Most Famous Barbarians looks at the history of the "barbarians" who brought Rome to its knees in the late fifth century and helped bring about the final collapse of the Roman Empire.

"I believe that it is as much a right and duty for women to do something with their lives as for men and we are not going to be satisfied with such frivolous parts as you give us." - Louisa May Alcott, Rose in Bloom Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888) was one of the best authors of her day, but even though she's remembered primarily for being a late 19th century novelist, she was also a progressive Transcendentalist.

Cloak and dagger adventure, with daring commandos parachuted deep behind enemy lines to kill a sinister mastermind, belongs chiefly to the realm of thriller novels or films.

Harriet Tubman is one of the most famous women in American history, and from an early age every American learns of her contributions to abolition and the Underground Railroad. The woman who became known as the Moses of her people personally led more than 13 expeditions to free slaves in the South, and she was so integral in helping escaped slaves achieve freedom that her name is practically synonymous with the Underground Railroad today.

When the American Film Institute assembled a list of its top 100 actors, one of the top 10 was James Cagney, an actor whose acting and dancing talents spawned a career that spanned over five decades and once compelled Orson Welles to call him "maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera." Ultimately it was portraying tough guys and gangsters in the 1930s that turned Cagney into a massive star, the kinds of roles he was born to play after growing up rough in Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century.

People in the Northeastern United States have been dealing with winter storms for centuries, and people in the South and on the East Coast have dealt with hurricanes and tropical storms for just as long, but it's rare for the weather systems that produce such storms to actually collide with each other and produce a more powerful storm. In fact it's unusual enough that when it happened in late October 1991, one weatherman dubbed it the "perfect storm".

Hollywood has never had a shortage of actors who thrived in one genre, whether it was John Wayne in Westerns or James Cagney in gangster films, but few had success across the entire spectrum like Gary Cooper, who managed to earn five Academy Award nominations despite an untimely death that cut short his career. Those nominations came for comedies, Westerns, and dramas, with wins for High Noon and the World War I film Sergeant York.

It would be nearly impossible for someone to pack more action into 32 years than Bruce Lee, whose name remains practically synonymous with martial arts excellence and kung-fu movies. He was undoubtedly the forerunner to martial arts stars who came in his wake, including Chuck Norris and Jackie Chan, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that he grew up as a sickly child. His upbringing was simultaneously one of great privilege and hardship, which had a huge impact on his career down the road.

Among all of Hollywood's iconic leading men, arguably none proved as versatile at acting as Henry Fonda, whose career spanned six decades and earned him Academy Awards for roles in various genres. After breaking into Hollywood in 1935, Fonda quickly rose the ranks, earning an Academy Award nomination in the classic Twelve Angry Men (1940), but Fonda had the kind of staying power that most actors could only dream of.

In the 1950s, popular music in the United States, Britain, and Europe jumped cultural tracks and went off in all directions, each form enjoying its own fan base, and its own way of overlapping with fellow genres.