Non-Fictie

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH * "What was it really like to be Richard Nixon? Evan Thomas tackles this fascinating question by peeling back the layers of a man driven by a poignant mix of optimism and fear."--Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs

Evan Thomas delivers the best single-volume biography of Richard Nixon to date, a radical, unique portrait of a complicated figure who was both determinedly optimistic and tragically flawed. The New York Times bestselling author of Ike's Bluff and Sea of Thunder, Thomas brings new life to one of American history's most infamous, paradoxical, and enigmatic politicians, dispensing with myths to achieve an intimate and nuanced look at the actual man.

What drove a painfully shy outcast in elite Washington society--a man so self-conscious he refused to make eye contact during meetings--to pursue power and public office? How did a president so attuned to the American political id that he won reelection in a historic landslide lack the self-awareness to recognize the gaping character flaws that would drive him from office and forever taint his legacy?

In Being Nixon, Evan Thomas peels away the layers of the complex, confounding figure who became America's thirty-seventh president. The son of devout Quakers, Richard Nixon (not unlike his rival John F. Kennedy) grew up in the shadow of an older, favored brother and thrived on conflict and opposition. Through high school and college, in the navy and in politics, he was constantly leading crusades and fighting off enemies real and imagined. As maudlin as he was Machiavellian, Nixon possessed the plainspoken eloquence to reduce American television audiences to tears with his career-saving "Checkers" speech; meanwhile, his darker half hatched schemes designed to take down his political foes, earning him the notorious nickname "Tricky Dick."

Drawing on a wide range of historical accounts, Thomas reveals the contradictions of a leader whose vision and foresight led him to achieve détente with the Soviet Union and reestablish relations with communist China, but whose underhanded political tactics tainted his reputation long before the Watergate scandal. One of the principal architects of the modern Republican Party and its "silent majority" of disaffected whites and conservative ex-Dixiecrats, Nixon was also deemed a liberal in some quarters for his efforts to desegregate Southern schools, create the Environmental Protection Agency, and end the draft.

A deeply insightful character study as well as a brilliant political biography, Being Nixon offers a surprising look at a man capable of great bravery and extraordinary deviousness--a balanced portrait of a president too often reduced to caricature.

Praise for Being Nixon

"A biography of eloquence and breadth . . . No single volume about Nixon's long and interesting life could be so comprehensive."--Chicago Tribune

"Terrifically engaging . . . a fair, insightful and highly entertaining portrait."--The Wall Street Journal

"Thomas has a fine eye for the telling quote and the funny vignette, and his style is eminently readable."--The New York Times Book Review

"Thomas proves an amiable and fair-minded tour guide."--The Boston Globe

"A measured, concise, and important American biography."--Michael Beschloss, author of Presidential Courage

Explains how and why Renaissance art differs from art of the Middle Ages.

The Battleships, an accompaniment to the new four-part Channel 4 series, relates the story of the most awesome war-machines ever built and their pivotal role in global history.

« Fourteenth-century French manuscripts have been characterized as being striking examples of varied fluid styles, expressive of narrative and enhanced by light and delicate modelling. Incidental drolleries often show a direct and tender observation of the natural characteristics of birds, beasts, insects and flowers. In a number of the major manuscripts we find an intriguing new feature : the figures are no longer plainted in full color, as is the rest of the miniature, but are portrayed in pale, semi-lucent monochrome or grisaille. The color "abstraction" of such miniatures makes for a distinct decorative harmony between picture and script which could never exist between black lettering and miniatures painted in full color. François Avril of the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris has selected and described the individual folios reproduced from these masterworks. »--Quatrième de couverture.

This masterly account of Leonardo da Vinci and his vision of the world is now widely recognized as the classic treatment of Leonardo's art, science, and thought, giving an unparalleled insight into the broadening and deepening of Leonardo's intellect and vision throughout his artistic career. Kemp, one of the world's leading authorities on Leonardo, takes us on a journey through the whole span of the great man's career, giving a fully integrated picture of his artistic, scientific, and technological achievements. Leonardo's early training in Florence provided a crucial foundation in the 'science of art', particularly perspective and anatomy. His period in the service of the Sforzas of Milan enlarged his outlook to embrace a wide range of natural sciences and mathematics, as he searched for scientific rules governing both man and the universe. It was these rules which provided the basis for his imaginative reconstruction of nature in great works such as the Last Supper, the Mona Lisa, and St John, which reveal his increasingly complex vision of man in the context of nature. And towards the end of his life, Leonardo became fascinated with the mathematics underlying the 'design of nature', behind which lay the ultimate force of the 'prime mover', as manifested with supreme power in his Deluge drawings. Covering all areas of Leonardo's achievement, generously illustrated, and now including a new introductory chapter setting Leonardo's work in its historical context, this fully updated new edition provides an unparalleled insight into the marvellous works of this central figure in western art.

.The Middle Ages represented a flowering of spirituality and culture which, in Europe, has not been equalled since. This book examines some of the great writers and thinkers of the period and the events in which they took part.

No other woman in world history has been of such compulsive interest as Elizabeth Tudor. While the rest of the 16th-century Europe was subject to the bloodshed of religious war, Tudor peace brought England its great flowering of the arts. Central to that flowering was the enigmatic legend of the Queen herself, a myth deliberately created and sustained over four decades by public spectacle and courtly chivalry, by private sonnet and official oration.

An exhilarating new book from the author of the worldwide bestseller The Tulip.

The Naming of Names traces the search for order in the natural world, a search that for hundreds of years occupied some of the most brilliant minds in Europe.

Redefining man's relationship with nature was a major pursuit during the Renaissance. But in a world full of poisons, there was also an urgent practical need to name and recognize different plants, because most medicines were made from plant extracts.

Anna Pavord takes us on a thrilling adventure into botanical history, traveling from Athens in the third century BC, through Constantinople, Venice, the medical school at Salerno to the universities of Pisa and Padua. The journey, traced here for the first time, involves the culture of Islam, the first expeditions to the Indies and the first settlers in the New World.

In Athens, Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus was the first man ever to write a book about plants. How can we name, sort, and order them? He asked. The debate continues still, two thousand years later. Sumptuously illustrated in full colour, The Naming of Names gives a compelling insight into a world full of intrigue and intensely competitive egos.

The eighteenth-century Venetian painter Giambattista Tiepolo spent his life executing commissions in churches, palaces, and villas, often covering vast ceilings like those at the Wurzburg Residenz in Germany and the Royal Palace in Madrid with frescoes that are among the glories of Western art. The life of an epoch swirled around him - but though his contemporaries appreciated and admired him, they failed to understand him. Few have even attempted to tackle Tiepolo's series of thirty-three bizarre and haunting etchings, the Capricci and the Scherzi, but Roberto Calasso rises to the challenge, interpreting these etchings as chapters in a dark narrative that contains the secret of Tiepolo's art. Blooming ephebes, female satyrs, Oriental sages, owls, snakes: we will find them all, including Punchinello and Death, within the pages of this book, along with Venus, Time, Moses, numerous angels, Cleopatra and Beatrice of Burgundy - a motley, gypsyish company always on the go. Calasso makes clear that Tiepolo was more than a dazzling intermezzo in the history of painting. Rather, he represented a particular way of meeting the challenge of form: endowed with a fluid, seemingly effortless style, Tiepolo was the last incarnation of that peculiar Italian virtue sprezzatura, the art of not seeming artful.

"Rape, Ravage and Rant are the German watchwords in this war. Right, Revenge & Retrenchment shall be ours." Alexander Scrimgeour, 17th September 1914.When nineteen year old Alexander Scrimgeour lost his life at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, he had already left a legacy - complete diaries spanning the previous six years, chronicling first his life as the son of a wealthy stock broker, then his time as a young sea cadet and finally as a Sub-Lieutenant in His Majesty's Navy. Like all good midshipmen were required to do, Scrimgeour took great pride in writing his journals and was careful to recount every event with marked sincerity. Appalled by some of the actions of the British Admiralty and the Germans alike, Scrimgeour risked court-martial to record some of the more notorious incidents during World War I, and what really happened...His candid way of writing coupled with an articulate and imaginative turn of phrase has left us with first hand evidence shedding light on some extraordinary moments of the Great War. Among his revelations, Scrimgeour reveals the real reason behind the sinking of the HMS Hawke, the events preceding the capture of the infamous Baron Von Wedel - head of the German Spy Bureau and Privy Councilor to the Kaiser and what he learnt from dining with his Naval Commanders as the ship's interpreter. A great deal of attention is devoted to his personal life, including his numerous love affairs, his relationship with his family and his anguish at the loss of close friends killed during the war.Up until now, the few existing war diaries have generally been written by those who fought in the trenches. To have such a detailed and well preserved account of the Great War, written so eloquently from a naval standpoint is nothing less than a marvel.With thousands of British sailors losing their lives at sea during World War I, it is important to draw on all remaining first hand evidence so that we remember, and never forget the heroic actions of our ancestors during one of our country's darkest episodes...Through the diaries of Alexander Scrimgeour, we can do just that.

Raffaello, Bruegel, Tintoretto, Caravaggio, Tiziano, El Greco, Veronese e tutti i grandi artisti che hanno fatto la storia dell'arte e sono vissuti in questo secolo.

This classic study emphasizes the admirals personality and character and draws on a wealth of primary sources, including Nelsons letters.

“A palaeontological howdunnit…[Spying on Whales] captures the excitement of…seeking answers to deep questions in cetacean science.” —Nature
 
Called “the best of science writing” (Edward O. Wilson) and named a best book by Popular Science, a dive into the secret lives of whales, from their four-legged past to their perilous present.


Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. They evolved from land-roaming, dog-sized creatures into animals that move like fish, breathe like us, can grow to 300,000 pounds, live 200 years and travel entire ocean basins. Whales fill us with terror, awe, and affection--yet there is still so much we don't know about them. Why did it take whales over 50 million years to evolve to such big sizes, and how do they eat enough to stay that big? How did their ancestors return from land to the sea--and what can their lives tell us about evolution as a whole? Importantly, in the sweepstakes of human-driven habitat and climate change, will whales survive?

Nick Pyenson's research has given us the answers to some of our biggest questions about whales. He takes us deep inside the Smithsonian's unparalleled fossil collections, to frigid Antarctic waters, and to the arid desert in Chile, where scientists race against time to document the largest fossil whale site ever found. Full of rich storytelling and scientific discovery, Spying on Whales spans the ancient past to an uncertain future--all to better understand the most enigmatic creatures on Earth.

On the 12th of July 1995 the Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica fell. During and after the town's conquest Bosnian Serb troops killed between 3000 and 8000 Muslims. This was the largest single war crime in Europe since the end of World War II, and what made it even more shocking was that it took place under the eyes of Dutch UN troops who were stationed there specifically to prevent such a disaster. Also, there had been clear warnings of a looming bloodbath. How could the massacre have happened and could it have been avoided? These are questions this account tries to answer.

In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens offers a startlingly new and provocative interpretation of our Founding Father. Situating Jefferson within the context of America's evolution and tracing his legacy over the past two hundred years, Hitchens brings the character of Jefferson to life as a man of his time and also as a symbolic figure beyond it.

Conflicted by power, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as Minister to France yet yearned for a quieter career in the Virginia legislature. Predicting that slavery would shape the future of America's development, this professed proponent of emancipation elided the issue in the Declaration and continued to own human property. An eloquent writer, he was an awkward public speaker; a reluctant candidate, he left an indelible presidential legacy.

Jefferson's statesmanship enabled him to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase with France, doubling the size of the nation, and he authorized the Lewis and Clark expedition, opening up the American frontier for exploration and settlement. Hitchens also analyzes Jefferson's handling of the Barbary War, a lesser-known chapter of his political career, when his attempt to end the kidnapping and bribery of Americans by the Barbary states, and the subsequent war with Tripoli, led to the building of the U.S. navy and the fortification of America's reputation regarding national defense.

In the background of this sophisticated analysis is a large historical drama: the fledgling nation's struggle for independence, formed in the crucible of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and, in its shadow, the deformation of that struggle in the excesses of the French Revolution. This artful portrait of a formative figure and a turbulent era poses a challenge to anyone interested in American history -- or in the ambiguities of human nature.

Srebenica werd tijdens de oorlog in Bosnië in 1993 uitgeroepen tot 'veilige enclave' waar moslimvluchtelingen werden beschermd door VN-troepen. In 1995 viel de enclave in handen van Bosnisch-Servische troepen, en vond er een massaslachting plaats onder de mannelijke vluchtelingen. Selma Leydesdorff, een autoriteit op het terrein van oral history, reconstrueert deze feiten op basis van de verhalen van de overlevende vrouwen.

Tekstuitgave met moderne historische inleiding.

Interviews met bewoners van Curaçao over de slavernij, het koloniale verleden en de toekomst van het eiland. Curaçao heeft een geschiedenis achter de rug van 200 jaar slavernij gevolgd door bijna 100 jaar kolonisatie. Hoe wordt er momenteel in de Curaçaose gemeenschap gedacht over de doorwerking van dat verleden? Welke slagschaduwen worden zichtbaar in de samenleving van vandaag? Colet van der Ven vroeg het een veertigtal Curaçaoënaars, van scholier tot oud-ministerpresident en van psychiater tot kunstenaar. Hun antwoorden leverden een bont palet aan meningen op. Slagschaduwen wil de lezer uitnodigen om in samenspraak met al die verschillende stemmen een eigen standpunt te formuleren en hoopt zo een inhoudelijke bijdrage te leveren aan een hoogst actueel debat.

It's the end of the world as we know it...
Someday soon, you might wake up to the call to prayer from a muezzin. Europeans already are. And liberals will still tell you that "diversity is our strength"--while Talibanic enforcers cruise Greenwich Village burning books and barber shops, the Supreme Court decides sharia law doesn't violate the "separation of church and state," and the Hollywood Left decides to give up on gay rights in favor of the much safer charms of polygamy. If you think this can't happen, you haven't been paying attention, as the hilarious, provocative, and brilliant Mark Steyn--the most popular conservative columnist in the English-speaking world--shows to devastating effect. The future, as Steyn shows, belongs to the fecund and the confident. And the Islamists are both, while the West is looking ever more like the ruins of a civilization. But America can survive, prosper, and defend its freedom only if it continues to believe in itself, in the sturdier virtues of self-reliance (not government), in the centrality of family, and in the conviction that our country really is the world's last best hope. Mark Steyn's America Alone is laugh-out-loud funny--but it will also change the way you look at the world.

Thomas Paine was one of the greatest advocates of freedom in history, and his Declaration of the Rights of Man, first published in 1791, is the key to his reputation. Inspired by his outrage at Edmund Burke's attack on the French Revolution, Paine's text is a passionate defense of man's inalienable rights. Since its publication, Rights of Man has been celebrated, criticized, maligned, suppressed, and co-opted. But in Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, the polemicist and commentator Christopher Hitchens, "at his characteristically incisive best," marvels at its forethought and revels in its contentiousness (The Times, London). Hitchens is a political descendant of the great pamphleteer, "a Tom Paine for our troubled times." (The Independent, London) In this "engaging account of Paine's life and times [that is] well worth reading" he demonstrates how Paine's book forms the philosophical cornerstone of the United States, and how, "in a time when both rights and reason are under attack," Thomas Paine's life and writing "will always be part of the arsenal on which we shall need to depend." (New Statesman)

"The idea of 'civilisation' has always been debated, even fought over. At the heart of those debates lies the big question of how people - from prehistory to the present day - have depicted themselves and others, both human and divine. Distinguished historian Mary Beard explores how art has shaped, and been shaped by, the people who created it. How have we looked at these images? Why have they sometimes been so contentious?In Part One, she examines how the human figure was portrayed in some of the earliest art in the world - from the gigantic stone heads carved by the Olmec of Central America to the statues and pottery of the ancient Greeks to the terracotta army of the first emperor of China. And she explains how one particular version of representing the human body, which goes back to the ancient world, still influences (and sometimes distorts) how people in the West see their own culture and that of others. Throughout this story, she is concerned not only with the artists who made images, but with those who have used them, viewed them and interpreted them. In other words: 'How Do We Look?' In Part Two, Mary Beard turns to the relationship between art and religion. For centuries, religion has inspired art: from the Hindu temple at Angkor Wat to the Christian mosaics of Ravenna to the exquisite calligraphy of Islamic mosques. But making the divine visible in the human world has never been simple. All religions have wrestled with idolatry and iconoclasm, destroying art as well as creating it - and asking how to look with 'The Eye of Faith.'"--Jacket.

John Parkinson's beautiful Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris inspired Anna Parkinson from an early age. Who was this man who wrote so engagingly about plants? Was he a relation, as her father believed? And why was so little known about a man who was a key influence on the flowering of the English garden in the 17th century? Intrigued, she set out to find the answers. Now, for the first time, John Parkinson can be seen as a man whose story reveals the excitement and agony of those turbulent times. His lifelong passion for plants was bound up with the new dawn of scientific enquiry and the struggles of faith. We follow him from a humble childhood in Lancashire to a career as an apothecary in London which would bring him to high office under Charles I. We see how he tried, with his medical colleagues, to create a new 'common wealth' to replace the old monastic system, vesting his effort in writing the most comprehensive and scientific herbal there had ever been in English. Yet as a Catholic he kept a low profile, quietly growing an extraordinary range of flowers for 'delight and pleasure' in his notable garden in Covent Garden. He carefully recorded them all and had them engraved for his wonderful books.

The outline of the story of John Keats's life is well known: the archetypal life of the Romantic genius, critically spurned and dying young. This biography aims to enrich the facts with an understanding of how Keats fitted into the intellectual and political life of his time. It includes detailed examination of significant friendships with anti-establishment figures such as Hazlitt and Hunt, and the closeness of Keats's own spirit to the ferment all around, as expressed in his poems. The book also presents information about his schooldays and medical training.