David Roberts – författare

`My object is to have you fit to live; which, if you are not, I do not desire that you should live at all.'So wrote Lord Chesterfield in one of the most celebrated and controversial correspondences between a father and son. Chesterfield wrote almost daily to his natural son, Philip, from 1737 onwards, providing him with instruction in etiquette and the worldly arts.Praised in their day as a complete manual of education, and despised by Samuel Johnson for teaching `the morals of a whore and the manners of a dancing-master', these letters reflect the political craft of a leading statesman and the urbane wit of a man who associated with Pope, Addison, and Swift. The letters reveal Chesterfield's political cynicism and his belief that his country had `always been goverened by the only two or three people, out of two or three millions, totally incapable of governing', as well as his views on good breeding. Not originally intended for publication, this entertaining correspondence illuminates fascinating aspects of eighteenth-century life and manners. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This book explores the demise of the grand narrative of European modernity. That once commanding narrative located the meaning of the past in the present and the meaning of the present in an ever-receding future. Today, instead, the present defines both the past and the future. The ‘contemporary’ has replaced ‘modern’ and ‘post-modern’ self-understandings. The times of the past and the future have been transformed into versions of ‘now’ while the present has acquired its own history. History of the Present describes the emergence of this ‘contemporary’ historical consciousness across a wide spectrum of cultural phenomena ranging from historiography to heritage and museum studies, and from the globalization of the novel to the rise of science fiction. The culture of the ‘contemporary’ appears particularly clearly in the merging of high and low culture along with art and fashion. This book will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural and social theory, museum and heritage studies, and literary history and criticism.

This book explores the demise of the grand narrative of European modernity. That once commanding narrative located the meaning of the past in the present and the meaning of the present in an ever-receding future. Today, instead, the present defines both the past and the future. The ‘contemporary’ has replaced ‘modern’ and ‘post-modern’ self-understandings. The times of the past and the future have been transformed into versions of ‘now’ while the present has acquired its own history. History of the Present describes the emergence of this ‘contemporary’ historical consciousness across a wide spectrum of cultural phenomena ranging from historiography to heritage and museum studies, and from the globalization of the novel to the rise of science fiction. The culture of the ‘contemporary’ appears particularly clearly in the merging of high and low culture along with art and fashion. This book will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural and social theory, museum and heritage studies, and literary history and criticism.

On January 17, 1913, alone and near starvation, Douglas Mawson, leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, was hauling a sledge to get back to base camp. The dogs were gone. Now Mawson himself plunged through a snow bridge, dangling over an abyss by the sledge harness. A line of poetry gave him the will to haul himself back to the surface.Mawson was sometimes reduced to crawling, and one night he discovered that the soles of his feet had completely detached from the flesh beneath. On February 8, when he staggered back to base, his features unrecognizably skeletal, the first teammate to reach him blurted out, "Which one are you?"This thrilling and almost unbelievable account establishes Mawson in his rightful place as one of the greatest polar explorers and expedition leaders. It is illustrated by a trove of Frank Hurley’s famous Antarctic photographs, many never before published in the United States.

In a book that is part memoir and part history, David Roberts looks back at his personal relationship to extreme risk and tries to make sense of why so many have committed their lives to the desperate pursuit of adventure.In the wake of his diagnosis with throat cancer, Roberts seeks the answer with sharp new urgency. He explores his own lifelong commitment to adventuring, as well as the cultural contributions of explorers throughout history. He looks at what it meant in 1911 for Amundsen to reach the South Pole or in 1953 for Hillary and Norgay to summit the highest point on earth. And he asks what the future of adventure is in a world we have mapped and trodden all the way to the most remote corners of the wilderness.

In July 1776, Franciscan friars Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante set out from Santa Fe to blaze a pathway to the new Spanish missions in California, across the huge expanse of what would become the American Southwest. In October, in western Utah, ravaged by hunger and cold, the twelve-man team had to turn back. Stymied by the raging Colorado River, killing their horses for food, the men saw an exploring expedition transformed into a fight for survival. In this chronicle of adventure and history, David Roberts retraces the Spaniards’ forgotten route, using Escalante’s diary as his guide. Blending personal narrative with critical analysis, Roberts relives the glories, catastrophes, and courage of this desperate journey.

In late July 1776, fathers Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Francisco Vélez de Escalante set out from Santa Fe to chart a route to the new Spanish missions in California. The Fransiscans planned to scout the country for mineral wealth and locate the Ute and Navajo tribes for conversion. In present-day Utah, however, the dangers of starvation and hypothermia forced them to turn back. By November the friars were reduced to survival mode: stymied by the raging Colorado River, they had to kill their horses for food.In this adventure-history, David Roberts travels the Spaniards’ forgotten route, using Escalante’s first-person report as his guide. Blending personal and historical narrative, he relives the glories, catastrophes and courage of this desperate journey.

By 1930, no place in the world was less well explored than Greenland. The native Inuit had occupied the relatively accessible west coast for centuries. The east coast, however, was another story. In August 1930, Henry George Watkins (nicknamed Gino), a 23-year-old explorer, led thirteen scientists and explorers on an ambitious journey to the east coast of Greenland and its vast and forbidding interior.Their mission: chart and survey the region and establish a permanent meteorological base 8,000 feet high on the ice cap. That plan turned into an epic survival ordeal when August Courtauld, manning the station solo through the winter, became entombed by drifting snow. David Roberts, “veteran mountain climber and chronicler of adventures” (Washington Post), draws on firsthand accounts and rich archival materials to tell the story of this daring expedition and of the ingenious young explorer at its helm.

By developing a long-term supranational perspective, this ambitious, multi-faceted work provides a new understanding of ‘totalitarianism’, the troubling common element linking Soviet communism, Italian fascism and German Nazism. The book’s original analysis of antecedent ideas on the subject sheds light on the common origins and practices of the regimes.Through this fresh appreciation of their initial frame of mind, Roberts demonstrates how the three political experiments yielded unprecedented collective mobilization but also a characteristic combination of radicalization, myth-making, and failure. Providing deep historical analysis, the book proves that 'totalitarianism' best characterizes the common features in the originating aspirations, the mode of action and even the outcomes of Soviet communism, Italian fascism and German Nazism.By enhancing our knowledge of what ‘totalitarianism’ was and where it came from, Roberts affords important lessons about the ongoing challenges, possibilities, and dangers of the modern political experiment.

By developing a long-term supranational perspective, this ambitious, multi-faceted work provides a new understanding of ‘totalitarianism’, the troubling common element linking Soviet communism, Italian fascism and German Nazism. The book’s original analysis of antecedent ideas on the subject sheds light on the common origins and practices of the regimes.Through this fresh appreciation of their initial frame of mind, Roberts demonstrates how the three political experiments yielded unprecedented collective mobilization but also a characteristic combination of radicalization, myth-making, and failure. Providing deep historical analysis, the book proves that 'totalitarianism' best characterizes the common features in the originating aspirations, the mode of action and even the outcomes of Soviet communism, Italian fascism and German Nazism.By enhancing our knowledge of what ‘totalitarianism’ was and where it came from, Roberts affords important lessons about the ongoing challenges, possibilities, and dangers of the modern political experiment.

This book examines the limits to cosmopolitan liberal peacebuilding caused by its preoccupation with the values and assumptions of neoliberal global governance. The peace people experience is determined by the processes privileged in peacebuilding. This book is about four things that shape the processes involved. First, it is a critique of orthodox postconflict peacebuilding. It takes the position that the present approach, although seemingly hegemonic, is routinely ignored or manipulated by elites and society and converted into a miasma that to some degree wastes the energies and opportunities involved. Second, it is about alternatives which invoke the kind of peace people might seek in postconflict places if they had more control over the process of peacebuilding, a notion referred to here as ‘popular peace’. It is thus not the kind of critical work that some describe as ‘reflexive anti-liberalism’. Rather, it seeks alternatives that are grounded in the lives of people in postconflict spaces and which also reflect some of the essential values of Liberalism. Third, it is about the role of both informal and formal actors, institutions and practices in the creation of such a peace. For instance, it is concerned with the legitimacy of informal practices that lie beyond Liberal tolerance and which are vital in the pursuit of everyday peace. Fourth, it is about a ‘transversal’ (rather than vertical or hierarchical) relationship of global and local governance in securing a peace that reflects the needs and values of both. In short, this work is a response to the substantial inconsistencies that appear between peacebuilding rhetoric and everyday outcomes in postconflict places.This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, post-conflict statebuilding, conflict studies, global governance and International Relations in general.

This book examines the limits to cosmopolitan liberal peacebuilding caused by its preoccupation with the values and assumptions of neoliberal global governance. The peace people experience is determined by the processes privileged in peacebuilding. This book is about four things that shape the processes involved. First, it is a critique of orthodox postconflict peacebuilding. It takes the position that the present approach, although seemingly hegemonic, is routinely ignored or manipulated by elites and society and converted into a miasma that to some degree wastes the energies and opportunities involved. Second, it is about alternatives which invoke the kind of peace people might seek in postconflict places if they had more control over the process of peacebuilding, a notion referred to here as ‘popular peace’. It is thus not the kind of critical work that some describe as ‘reflexive anti-liberalism’. Rather, it seeks alternatives that are grounded in the lives of people in postconflict spaces and which also reflect some of the essential values of Liberalism. Third, it is about the role of both informal and formal actors, institutions and practices in the creation of such a peace. For instance, it is concerned with the legitimacy of informal practices that lie beyond Liberal tolerance and which are vital in the pursuit of everyday peace. Fourth, it is about a ‘transversal’ (rather than vertical or hierarchical) relationship of global and local governance in securing a peace that reflects the needs and values of both. In short, this work is a response to the substantial inconsistencies that appear between peacebuilding rhetoric and everyday outcomes in postconflict places.This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, post-conflict statebuilding, conflict studies, global governance and International Relations in general.

This book traces the development of modern Syria focusing on the contribution of the Ba’th party and Ba’thist ideology. It examines the roots of the Ba’th in the intellectual ferment of the 1940s and charts its growing influence on Syrian politics. Special attention is devoted to the crucial Sixth Congress of the Ba’th Party in 1963 and the key ideological document, the Muntalaqat, produced by Michel Aflaq. After 1963 the military became increasingly dominant until Hafiz al-Asad came to power in 1970. Since then the Party has been less dominant internally but Syria itself has established a pivotal position in regional affairs. The book concludes by reviewing the prospects for Syria after Asad and the potential for a Ba’thist revival.

Restoration London's leading actor and theatre manager Thomas Betterton has not been the subject of a biography since 1891. He worked with all the best-known playwrights of his age and with the first generation of English actresses; he was intimately involved in the theatre's responses to politics, and became a friend of leading literary men such as Pope and Steele. His innovations in scenery and company management, and his association with the dramatic inheritance of Shakespeare, helped to change the culture of English theatre. David Roberts's entertaining study unearths new documents and draws fresh conclusions about this major but shadowy figure. It contextualizes key performances and examines Betterton's relationship to patrons, colleagues and family, as well as to significant historical moments and artefacts. The most substantial study available of any seventeenth-century actor, Thomas Betterton gives one of England's greatest performing artists his due on the tercentenary of his death.

This book illustrates the limits to the 1990s UNTAC peacekeeping intervention in Cambodia and raises a critical challenge to the assumptions underpinning key tenets of the 'Liberal Project' as a mechanism for resolving complex, severe struggles for elite political power in developing countries.The book highlights the limitations of externally imposed power-sharing. In the case of Cambodia, the imagined effect was a coalition that would share power democratically. However, this approach was appropriate only for resolving the superpower conflict that had created Cambodia's war. Rather than bringing long-term peace to Cambodia, Roberts argues, it created the temporary illusion of a democratic system that in fact recreated the military conflict and housed it in a superficial coalition.The book challenges assumptions regarding the inevitability of the globalization of liberalism as a means of ordering non-western societies. It explains the failure of democratic transition in terms of the impropriety and weakness of the plan which preceded it, and in terms of the elite's traditional reliance on absolutism and resistance to the concept of 'Opposition'.

This book illustrates the limits to the 1990s UNTAC peacekeeping intervention in Cambodia and raises a critical challenge to the assumptions underpinning key tenets of the 'Liberal Project' as a mechanism for resolving complex, severe struggles for elite political power in developing countries.The book highlights the limitations of externally imposed power-sharing. In the case of Cambodia, the imagined effect was a coalition that would share power democratically. However, this approach was appropriate only for resolving the superpower conflict that had created Cambodia's war. Rather than bringing long-term peace to Cambodia, Roberts argues, it created the temporary illusion of a democratic system that in fact recreated the military conflict and housed it in a superficial coalition.The book challenges assumptions regarding the inevitability of the globalization of liberalism as a means of ordering non-western societies. It explains the failure of democratic transition in terms of the impropriety and weakness of the plan which preceded it, and in terms of the elite's traditional reliance on absolutism and resistance to the concept of 'Opposition'.

Relates to one of Wales' most important institutions of higher education, covering its history from its creation in 1884 as the University College of North Wales, its incarnation as the University of Wales, Bangor and to its 125th anniversary in 2009. This book traces the institution's origins as an 18th century coaching inn with just 58 students.

At the end, in the summer of 1886, they numbered thirty-four men, women, and children under the leadership of Geronimo. This small group of Chiricahua Apaches became the last band of free Indians to wage war against the United States Government. The 'renegades', as white men called them, were mercilessly pursued by five thousand American troops (one quarter of the US Army) and by three thousand Mexican soldiers. For more than five months Geronimo's band ran the soldiers ragged. The combined military might of two great mations succeeded in capturing not a single Chiricagua, not even a child.' From the Preface.Of the many tales of conflict and warfare between the US Government and the Indian tribes, perhaps none is more dramatic or revealing than the story of the Apache wars. Those wars were the final episode of the US Government's subjugation of the indigenous peoples; the surrender of Geronimo in 1886 effectively ended the Indian wars.Once They Moved Like the Wind is the epic story of the Apache campagin, told with sympathy and understanding. Using historical archives and contemporary accounts, David Roberts has writeen an original, stirring account of the last years of the free Apaches.

This text is divided into two sections: a core element focusing on basic skills which everyone needs to master in writing essays, and a subject-based section which takes the student to a more advanced level.