Non-Fictie

During the last few decades the study of the family has flourished, and in the process many myths about what life was like two or three centuries ago have been debunked. For example, contrary to popular belief, we now know that most women in the preindustrial West did not marry before they were twenty-five. Most households consisted of no more than four or five people, usually including unrelated young people working as servants. And perhaps most surprising of all, multigenerational households were not very common. Pulling together much fascinating information about the family in the preindustrial Western world, Beatrice Gottlieb presents every aspect of this rich subject with clarity and fairness. Her generously illustrated book deals with the households of the wealthy and the poor, courtship and marriage, the care and training of children, and the bonds (and strains) of kinship. The matter of inheritance receives special attention, as it played a substantial role in a world permeated by rank and status, and its importance gave the family a peculiar social and economic significance. With a focus on the ordinary people whose everyday lives strike a responsive chord in all of us, as well as brief appearances by famous people and important events in history--Henry VIII's divorce, Benjamin Franklin's apprenticeship to his brother, and Mary Wollstonecraft's death in childbirth--this remarkable, eminently readable work brings to vivid life the wives and husbands, servants and masters, children and parents of a not too distant past.

Interviews met o.a. Mensje van Keulen, Adele Bloemendaal, Andreas Burnier, Mischa de Vreede, Annie Romein-Verschoor, Margaret Mead, Germaine Greer 

In De Braziliaanse affaire reconstructeert Evaldo Cabral de Mello het diplomatieke spel rondom de Vrede van Münster (1648) tussen de Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Provinciën en Portugal, met als medespelers Spanje, Frankrijk en Engeland, en als inzet de rijkdommen van Brazilië.
In 1630 veroverde de West-Indische Compagnie het suikerrijke Recife. Onder Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen leek de kolonie een stevige bezitting, maar na zijn vertrek in 1644 ging het bergafwaarts. In 1640 werd Portugal onafhankelijk van Spanje en begon het onderhandelen met de Republiek. Na de verdrijving van de Nederlanders in 1654 duurden de onderhandelingen tot 1661, toen Portugal zwaar moest betalen voor de Nederlandse aanspraken op de kolonie.
Evaldo Cabral de Mello is een gerenommeerd historicus en auteur, en zijn studie toont aan dat internationale politiek in de 17e eeuw vooral draaide om eigenbelang.

Hoe Oorlogen Beginnen van A.J.P. Taylor onderzoekt de oorzaken van oorlogen, met een focus op de Eerste en Tweede Wereldoorlog. Taylor stelt dat oorlogen vaak beginnen door een combinatie van misverstanden, verkeerde inschattingen en ondoordachte beslissingen van politieke leiders, in plaats van door een vooraf bepaalde planning. Hij benadrukt dat veel oorlogen het gevolg zijn van onbewuste acties en de persoonlijke fouten van diplomaten en militaire leiders, die de situatie laten escaleren. Het boek biedt een analyse van de complexe interacties tussen landen, politieke ambities en de onvoorspelbaarheid van menselijke beslissingen in tijden van crisis.

A revealing, richly textured portrait of everyday life in thirteenth-century Britain chronicles the people and events leading up to the signing of the Magna Carta at Runnymede in June 1215. 50,000 first printing.

Anders dan Engeland heeft Nederland geen National Portrait Gallery. Maar het Letterkundig Museum in Den Haag heeft een begin gemaakt. Daar hangen alfabetisch op schrjiversnaam de geschilderde portretten van ruim vierhonderd Nederlandse schrijvers. De bonte reeks portretten in dit boek biedt zo een aantrekkelijk overzicht van de gezichten achter de literatuur.

Bundeling columns die de auteur (1962-2005) schreef over zijn leven als kankerpatiënt.

Artikelen over de geschiedenis van eilanden uit de hele wereld.

Onderzoek naar en verklaring voor de geografische bodemtekeningen in Peru.

The idea that Britain, the US and other western societies are witnessing the rise of an underclass of people at the bottom of the social heap, structurally and culturally distinct from traditional patterns of `decent' working-class life, has become increasingly popular in the 1990s. Anti-work, anti-social, and welfare dependent cultures are said to typify this new `dangerous class' and `dangerous youth' are taken as the prime subjects of underclass theories. Debates about the family and single-parenthood, about crime and about unemployment and welfare reforms have all become embroiled in underclass theories which, whilst highly controversial, have had remarkable influence on the politics and policies of governments in Britain and the US,
Youth, the `Underclass' and Social Exclusion constitutes the first concerted attempt to grapple with the underclass idea in relation to contemporary youth. It focuses upon unemployment, training, the labour market, crime, homelessness, and parenting and will be essential reading for students of social policy, sociology and criminology.

Imagine waking up one day to find that virtually everything you do has become a paid for experience. It is part of a fundamental change taking place in the nature of business, contends Jeremy Ritkin. After several hundred years as the organising principles of civilisation, the traditional market systems is beginning to break down. On the horizon looms the age of access, where we trade experiences instead of objects.

Biografie waarin onder meer gesteld wordt dat Vestdijks homoseksuele gevoelens vooral bij een depressie sterk naar boven kwamen.

Biografie van de Nederlandse dichter (1905-1962).

Until Josiah Wedgwood, Britons ate from wood and pewter plates. Until Henry Heinz, women toiled over pickled foods. Until Michael Dell, few people owned a personal computer, let alone dreamed of buying one "built to order." According to business historian Nancy F. Koehn, these pathbreaking entrepreneurs shared a powerful gift: the ability to discern how economic and social change would affect consumer needs and wants.

In Brand New, Koehn introduces us to six extraordinary leaders of brand creation who lived and worked during periods of widespread change: Josiah Wedgwood in the Industrial Revolution; Henry Heinz and Marshall Field in the Transportation and Communication Revolution; and Est?e Lauder, Howard Schultz of Starbucks, and Michael Dell in the Information Revolution. Through compelling and engaging profiles of these entrepreneurial visionaries, she reveals a provocative relationship between economic turbulence, household priorities, and company strategy that holds important lessons for today's brand builders.

According to Koehn, these forward-thinking individuals understood the profound effects that socioeconomic change has on what customers want, have, and can afford as much as on what companies make-and were masters at exploiting the enormous business opportunities these demand-side shifts created. Indeed, the brands and companies created by these individuals have become such a part of everyday life that we've made them part of common speech: we pass the Heinz; eat off Wedgwood; order a Starbucks.

Koehn draws from their diaries, correspondence, and official business records to demonstrate that these entrepreneurs were more than savvy marketers; they were institution builders. She shows how each used brand not as a logo, but as a vital strategic tool for creating best-of-class companies-and for building powerful organizational capabilities that supported their connections with customers and helped make new markets for their offerings.

Distilling critical lessons for businesses operating in both the traditional and on-line worlds, Brand New will convince every entrepreneur of the remarkable power of brands to transform start-ups, gain competitive advantage, and change lives.