From the Pulitzer-Prize–winning historian, an absorbing family saga of Virginia slavery and the earthshaking rebellion led by Nat Turner.This powerful history of Virginia slavery is grounded in the daily life of a struggling plantation, Tower Hill, owned by generations of a local merchant family. A persistent debt that is both commercial and emotional drives the Blows—husbands and wives, fathers and sons—to turmoil and madness. The enslaved Blacks at Tower Hill liv...

The Nat Turner rebellion of August 1831, the iconic uprising of enslaved people in the United States, was much more extensive than we have understood. This powerful exploration of a Tidewater Virginia plantation reveals how the daily resistance of the enslaved was heightened by spiritual beliefs to seek the divine overthrow of a wicked world.Tower Hill draws on a previously untapped family archive to reveal the routines of daily life and the fraught family...

The story of a Scottish city as seen by its residents and visitors: "It's a fine treasure-house—and even Glaswegians may learn something new from it." — ScotsmanThis is the story of the fabled former Second City of the British Empire, from its origins as a bucolic village on the rivers Kelvin and Clyde, through the Industrial Revolution to the dawning of the second millennium. Arranged chronologically and introduced by journalist and Glasgowphile Alan Taylo...

Discover the people and places of colonial Boston during the tumultuous years of rebellion—illustrations included.In 1764, a small town in the British colony of Massachusetts ignited a bold rebellion. When Great Britain levied the Sugar Act on its American colonies, Parliament was not prepared for Boston's backlash.For the next decade, Loyalists and rebels harried one another as both sides revolted and betrayed, punished and murdered. But the rebel leaders ...

A multicultural, multinational history of colonial America from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Internal Enemy and American RevolutionsIn the first volume in the Penguin History of the United States, edited by Eric Foner, Alan Taylor challenges the traditional story of colonial history by examining the many cultures that helped make America, from the native inhabitants from milennia past, through the decades of Western colonization and co...

In the simmering heat of August 1967, a kaleidoscopic minivan carrying a band of hippies – adorned with long hair, beards, beads, sandals, and granny dresses – pulls up at the gates of Ft. Gordon, Augusta, GA, then the heartland of the Military Police. Their mission is unconventional: to instruct the 25th Infantry Division, 60th Mine Scout Dog Platoon in harnessing the keen senses of dogs to detect landmines, trip wires, and hidden tunnels. The air crackles with animosity as two worlds col...

Offers a vivid portrait of Edinburgh's evolution, capturing its historical significance, cultural shifts, and the diverse lives of its people. Relive the history of Edinburgh through the eyes of those who witnessed it. From one of the earliest mentions of its name in the sixth century to the Covid lockdowns of the twenty-first, this is a magnificent portrait of one of the world's great cities in its many iterations, from 'Edinburgh, the sink of abomination' to the Athens of the North and e...

In the early nineteenth century, Britons and Americans renewed their struggle over the legacy of the American Revolution, leading to a second confrontation that redefined North America. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor’s vivid narrative tells the riveting story of the soldiers, immigrants, settlers, and Indians who fought to determine the fate of a continent. Would revolutionary republicanism sweep the British from Canada? Or would the British contain, divide, and ruin the shak...

A Scottish journalist offers rare insight into the life and mind of the renowned expat author in this "beguiling, fascinating memoir" ( The Guardian, UK).In 1990, Alan Taylor traveled to Arezzo, Italy, to interview one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century. That interview evolved into a close friendship between Taylor and Muriel Spark that lasted until her death in 2006. In this intimate, anecdotal, admiring and indiscreet memoir, Taylor charts the...

A journey through the history of this railway that brought passengers to the English seaside for fifty years. Includes maps and photos.The Southwold Railway was a delightful example of one of East Anglia's minor railways: A 3ft gauge railway, single track, just over eight miles long from Halesworth (connections to London) across the heathland and marshes of East Suffolk to the seaside resort and harbor of Southwold.This book collates the research and memori...

‘A diary is an assassin’s cloak which we wear when we stab a comrade in the back with a pen’, wrote William Soutar in 1934. But a diary is also a place for recording everyday thoughts and special occasions, private fears and hopeful dreams. The Assassin’s Cloak gathers together some of the most entertaining and inspiring entries for each day of the year, as writers ranging from Queen Victoria to Andy Warhol, Samuel Pepys to Adrian Mole, pen their musings on the historic and the mu...

This searing story of slavery and freedom in the Chesapeake by a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian reveals the pivot in the nation’s path between the founding and civil war.Frederick Douglass recalled that slaves living along Chesapeake Bay longingly viewed sailing ships as "freedom’s swift-winged angels." In 1813 those angels appeared in the bay as British warships coming to punish the Americans for declaring war on the empire. Over many nights, hundreds of slaves paddled out to th...