Adrian Tinniswood - Böcker

From the coast of Southern Europe to Morocco and the Ottoman states of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, Christian and Muslim seafarers met in bustling ports to swap religions, to battle and to trade goods and sales - raiding as far as Ireland and Iceland in search of their human currency.Studying the origins of these men, their culture and practices, Adrian Tinniswood expertly recreates the twilight world of the corsairs and uncovers a truly remarkable clash of civilisations Drawing on a wealth of material, from furious royal proclamations to the private letters of pirates and their victims, as well as recent Islamic accounts, Pirates of Barbary provides a new perspectives of the corsairs and a fascinating insight into what it meant to sacrifice all you have for a life so violent, so uncertain and so alien that it sets you apart from the rest of mankind.

'A masterpiece of social history' Daily MailThere is nothing quite as beautiful as an English country house in summer. And there has never been a summer quite like that Indian summer between the two world wars, a period of gentle decline in which the sun set slowly on the British Empire and the shadows lengthened on the lawns of a thousand stately homes. Real life in the country house during the 1920s and 1930s was not always so sunny. By turns opulent and ordinary, noble and vicious, its shadows were darker. In The Long Weekend, Adrian Tinniswood uncovers the truth about a world half-forgotten, draped in myth and hidden behind stiff upper lips and film-star smiles. Drawing on hundreds of memoirs, on unpublished letters and diaries, on the eye-witness testimonies of belted earls and unhappy heiresses and bullying butlers, The Long Weekend gives a voice to the people who inhabited this world and shows how the image of the country house was carefully protected by its occupants above and below stairs, and how the reality was so much more interesting than the dream.

A delightful journey through the glamorous story of the English country house party by the bestselling historian.Croquet. Parlour games. Cocktails. Welcome to a glorious journey through the golden age of the country house party - and you are invited. Our host, celebrated historian Adrian Tinniswood, traces the evolution of this quintessentially British pastime from debauched royal tours to the flamboyant excess of the Bright Young Things. With cameos by the Jazz Age industrialist, the bibulous earl and the off-duty politician - whether in moated manor houses or ornate Palladian villas - Tinniswood gives a vivid insight into weekending etiquette and reveals the hidden lives of celebrity guests, from Nancy Astor to Winston Churchill, in all their drinking, feasting, gambling and fornicating. The result is a deliciously entertaining, star-studded, yet surprisingly moving portrait of a time when social conventions were being radically overhauled through the escapism of a generation haunted by war - and a uniquely fast-living period of English history. Praise for The Long Weekend:'Delicious, occasionally fantastical, revealing in ways that Downton Abbey never was. It is as if Tinniswood is at the biggest, wildest, most luxuriantly decadent party ever thrown, and he knows everyone.' Observer 'A deliciously jaunty and wonderfully knowledgeable book. Tinniswood displays a terrific insider's grasp of gossip . A meticulous, irresistible story.' Spectator 'Elegant, encyclopedic and entertaining . A confident and skilled historian who understands the mores of his era and wears his learning lightly . Deserves to be on every costume drama producer's bookshelf.' Times

There had, of course, been other fires, Four Hundred and fifty years before, the city had almost burned to the ground. Yet the signs from the heavens in 1666 were ominous: comets, pyramids of flame, monsters born in city slums. Then, in the early hours on 2 September, a small fire broke out on the ground floor of a baker's house in Pudding Lane. In five days that small fire would devastate the third largest city in the Western world.Adrian Tinniswood's magnificent new account of the Great Fire of London explores the history of a cataclysm and its consequences. It pieces together the untold human story of the Fire and its aftermath - the panic, the search for scapegoats, and the rebirth of a city. Above all, it provides an unsurpassable recreation of what happened to schoolchildren and servants, courtiers and clergyman when the streets of London ran with fire.

From the bestselling author of The Long Weekend: a wild, sad and sometimes hilarious tour of the English country house after the Second World War, when Swinging London collided with aristocratic values.'Preposterously entertaining' Observer'Brilliant' Daily Telegraph'Rollicking' Sunday TimesAs the sun set slowly on the British Empire in the years after the Second World War, the nation's stately homes were in crisis. Tottering under the weight of rising taxes and a growing sense that they had no place in twentieth-century Britain, hundreds of ancestral piles were dismantled and demolished.Yet - perhaps surprisingly - many of these great houses survived, as dukes and duchesses clung desperately to their ancestral seats and tenants' balls gave way to rock concerts, safari parks and day trippers. From the Rolling Stones rocking Longleat to Christine Keeler rocking Cliveden, Noble Ambitions takes us on a lively tour of these crumbling halls of power.* A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year ** Longlisted for the William MB Berger Prize for British Art History *

'Enthralling' Lucy Worsley'Wonderful' Judith Flanders'A whirling, waltzing panorama through the last carefree age of British nobility’ New StatesmanIn the decades before the First World War, the owners of the nation’s stately homes revelled in a golden age of glory and glamour. This was a time when the ancestral seats of ancient nobility stood side by side with the fabulous palaces of Jewish bankers and Indian princes, when dukes and duchesses mixed with self-made millionaires and society hostesses who had learned to dance in the chorus line.Adrian Tinniswood opens the doors to the country house during this glittering golden age, when – for the privileged few – life in the country house was the best life of all.'Fascinating' TLS'Illuminating' Literary Review'The range and scope of his book is breathtaking' Country Life

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERVenture behind closed doors to uncover the secrets of life in the interwar country house...During the 1920s and 1930s, as the sun set slowly on the British Empire, England's stately homes concealed worlds both opulent and ordinary, noble and viscious. This was a realm draped in myth, hidden behind stiff upper lips and film-star smiles.Drawing on hundreds of memoirs, on unpublished letters and diaries, on the eye-witness testimonies of belted earls, unhappy heiresses and bullying butlers, The Long Weekend reveals how the image of the country house was carefully protected by its occupants above and below stairs, and how the reality was so much more interesting than the dream.'A perfect piece of escapism' Guardian‘A delicious cocktail of a book’ Country Life‘Elegant, encyclopaedic and entertaining’ The Times

2 SEPTEMBER 1666: 350 YEARS SINCE THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON In the early hours of 2 September 1666 a small fire broke out in a bakery in Pudding Lane. In the five days that followed it grew into a conflagration that would devastate the third largest city in the Western world.This short edition is the essential guide to the Great Fire of London and includes first-hand descriptions from the diaries of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, as well as a gripping account from renowned historian Adrian Tinniswood.

'Tinniswood has created a tome of architectural brilliance, uncomfortable historical truths, and a complicated legacy of power and philanthropy.' – The Irish TimesStep inside the historic homes of the Guinness family and enter a world of power, privilege and palatial living. The Guinnesses became famous as brewers, philanthropists and socialites, but they also created some of the most distinctive homes in Britain and Ireland, where they lived, loved and entertained in high style. Royalty was a frequent visitor to Ashford Castle and Elveden Hall. At Luggala Oonagh Guinness welcomed rock stars, actors and artists. At Biddesden Bryan Guinness lived the life of an urbane country squire, while at Kelvedon his cousin Honor left her husband Chips Channon to play the country gentleman while she ran off with her land agent. The family’s Dublin mansions – Farmleigh, St Anne’s and 80 St Stephen’s Green – were a byword for grandeur and opulence. And the Guinnesses spent a fortune buying two spectacular country houses, Kenwood and Castletown, not to live in, but simply to save them from destruction and to give them away. Adrian Tinniswood, the bestselling historian of the country house, opens the door to castles and mansions that once belonged to the greatest brewing dynasty the world has ever seen.'Tinniswood … [is] an erudite historian of country-house life in all its anecdote-worthy vagaries.' – Financial Times'We are in the company of a confident and skilled historian who understands the mores of his era and wears his learning lightly…' – Virginia Nicholson, The Times'Few authors can combine serious social history with the sometimes sad and often hilarious narratives of country-house life in the way that Tinniswood can.' – Jeremy Musson

'Glamour, scholarship and superlative storytelling [...] an enthralling read.'LUCY WORSLEYAdrian Tinniswood opens the doors on the excess, intrigue and absurdities of life in the late Victorian and Edwardian country houseIn the decades before the First World War, the owners of the nation’s stately homes revelled in a golden age of glory and glamour. Nothing lay beyond their reach in a world where privilege and hedonism went hand-in-hand with duty and honour.This was a time when the ancestral seats of ancient nobility stood side-by-side with the fabulous palaces of Jewish bankers and Indian princes, when dukes and duchesses mixed with aristocratic society hostesses who had learned to dance in the chorus line and self-made millionaires who had been raised in the slums of Manchester and Birmingham.The Power and the Glory explores the country house during this golden age, when Britain ruled over a quarter of the world’s population, when its stately homes were at their most opulent and when, for the privileged few, life in the country house was the best life of all.'A wonderful book.'JUDITH FLANDERS'Scintillating and brilliant, from a master of the subject.'GARETH RUSSELL**A DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR**