Looks at Celtic history in Great Britain and Europe, describes their armor, weapons, leaders, and culture, and recounts their battles against Germanic, Norse, and Roman conquerors

Looks at Celtic history in Great Britain and Europe, describes their armor, weapons, leaders, and culture, and recounts their battles against Germanic, Norse, and Roman conquerors

Thomas Airlie Brown plunges the reader directly into the action and integrally weaves them into the book so tightly, it will not be easy for them to lay it down. The book is historical fiction leading up to a fairy tale, although it is so well leavened with helpings of historical and archeological facts, that all may end up to be factual after all. What he calls the Celtic Domain is traced from its first appearance in the Middle Europe, follows the migration trail across Western Europe into Britain and Ireland, then deals with the apparently unstoppable spread of the Roman Empire into Celtic territory and covers the major battles that resulted. Arthur and Camelot fill the final section with a new interpretation that intrigues as it develops, and ends with an Epilogue that highlights the reasons why the Celts, known-world conquerors before the Romans, could not compete with the political and military sophistication of the Roman Empire. The Appendix, with its numbered sections referred to in the text, contains tidbits of little-known information and history that add to the enjoyment of the read.

Delve into a world of kelpies, mermaids, selkies, ghosts, warlords, and fairies. This collection gives you Celtic tales, previously unrecorded or only found in obscure compilations. Mostly collected by the author on her ancestral home of the Isle of Barra in the Hebrides, these lesser-known tales from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales are supported by a brief history of the Celts, a glossary of the Gaelic integrated in the stories, an appendix of superstitions about fairy protection, and bibliographies that reflect the author's extensive research. Seventeen ballads collected almost one hundred years ago and excerpts from the author's journal of travels in Scotland make this book a unique and valuable resource for anyone who tells stories.

This is a reprint of the 1989 second edition of this book in our "Armies and Enemies" series. It includes details of armies from Andalusia, Bulgaria, England, Estonia, France, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, the Ordensstaat of the Teutonic Knights, the Earldom of Orkney, the Papal State, Poland, Prussia, Lithuania, the Low Countries, Kievan Russia, Scandinavia, Scotland, Serbia, Sicily, Spain, Venice, Wales and Wendland.

Country music in the Carolinas and the southern Appalachian Mountains owes a tremendous debt to freedom-loving Scotch-Irish pioneers who settled the southern backcountry during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These hardy Protestant settlers brought with them from Lowland Scotland, Northern England and the Ulster Province of Ireland music that created the essential framework for "old-time string band music." From the cabins of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains to the textile mills and urban centers of the Carolina foothills, this colorful, passionate, heartfelt music transformed the culture of America and the world and laid the foundation for western swing, bluegrass, rockabilly and modern country music. Author Michael Scoggins takes a trip to the roots of country music in the Carolinas.

This book contains some 600 entries on a range of topics from ancient Chinese warfare to late 20th-century intervention operations. Designed for a wide variety of users, it encompasses general reviews of aspects of military organization and science, as well as specific wars and conflicts. The book examines naval and air warfare, as well as significant individuals, including commanders, theorists, and war leaders. Each entry includes a listing of additional publications on the topic, accompanied by an article discussing these publications with reference to their particular emphases, strengths, and limitations.

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning author, God’s Crucible brings to life “a furiously complex age” (New York Times Book Review). Resonating as profoundly today as when it was first published to widespread critical acclaim a decade ago, God’s Crucible is a bold portrait of Islamic Spain and the birth of modern Europe from one of our greatest historians. David Levering Lewis’s narrative, filled with accounts of some of the most epic battles in world history, reveals how cosmopolitan, Muslim al-Andalus flourished—a beacon of cooperation and tolerance—while proto-Europe floundered in opposition to Islam, making virtues out of hereditary aristocracy, religious intolerance, perpetual war, and slavery. This masterful history begins with the fall of the Persian and Roman empires, followed by the rise of the prophet Muhammad and five centuries of engagement between the Muslim imperium and an emerging Europe. Essential and urgent, God’s Crucible underscores the importance of these early, world-altering events whose influence remains as current as today’s headlines.