From the bestselling author of Destiny of the Republic, this thrilling biographical account of the life and legacy of Wintson Churchill is a "nail-biter and top-notch character study rolled into one" (The New York Times). At the age of twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England. He arrived in South Africa in 1899, valet and crates of vintage wine in tow, to cover the brutal colonial war the British were fighting with Boer rebels and jumpstart his political career. But just two weeks later, Churchill was taken prisoner. Remarkably, he pulled off a daring escape—traversing hundreds of miles of enemy territory, alone, with nothing but a crumpled wad of cash, four slabs of chocolate, and his wits to guide him. Bestselling author Candice Millard spins an epic story of bravery, savagery, and chance encounters with a cast of historical characters—including Rudyard Kipling, Lord Kitchener, and Mohandas Gandhi—with whom Churchill would later share the world stage. But Hero of the Empire is more than an extraordinary adventure story, for the lessons Churchill took from the Boer War would profoundly affect twentieth century history.

Examines, through the lives of five important English and French figures, the history of the exploration and colonization of Africa between 1870 and 1914, and the role the mass media played in promoting colonial conquest.

A history of the British Crown honours system in the 20th century, showing its evolution through a period of democratisation and decolonisation, Tobias Harper examines how governments used the honours system to shape ideologies of loyalty and service, while dissidents turned the symbolism of honours against the Crown.

From the sixteenth until the twentieth century, British power and influence gradually expanded to cover one quarter of the world’s surface. The common saying was that “the sun never sets on the British Empire”. What began as a largely entrepreneurial enterprise in the early modern period, with privately run joint stock trading companies such as the East India Company driving British commercial expansion, by the nineteenth century had become, especially after 1857, a state-run endeavor, supported by a powerful military and navy. By the Victorian era, Britannia really did rule the waves. Heroes of the British Empire is the story of how British Empire builders such as Robert Clive, General Gordon, and Lord Roberts of Kandahar were represented and idealized in popular culture. The men who built the empire were often portrayed as possessing certain unique abilities which enabled them to serve their country in often inhospitable territories, and spread what imperial ideologues saw as the benefits of the British Empire to supposedly uncivilized peoples in far flung corners of the world. These qualities and abilities were athleticism, a sense of fair play, devotion to God, and a fervent sense of duty and loyalty to the nation and the empire. Through the example of these heroes, people in Britain, and children in particular, were encouraged to sign up and serve the empire or, in the words of Henry Newbolt, “Play up! Play up! And Play the Game!” Yet this was not the whole story: while some writers were paid up imperial propagandists, other writers in England detested the very idea of the British Empire. And in the twentieth century, those who were once considered as heroic military men were condemned as racist rulers and exploitative empire builders.

Soldier Heroes explores the imagining of masculinities within adventure stories. Drawing on literary theory, cultural materialism and Kleinian psychoanalysis, it analyses modern British adventure heroes as historical forms of masculinity originating in the era of nineteenth-century popular imperialism, traces their subsequent transformations and examines the way these identities are internalized and lived by men and boys.

A fantastic collection of classic stories about the righteous armies of the Empire set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. The Empire is besieged. Countless enemies batter the border of Sigmar’s mighty nation, seeking to tear down its cities and murder its inhabitants. Standing against them are an array of brave men and women, united in their defiance and led by true heroes. In the wilderness of Averland, Kurt Helborg, Marshal of the Reiksguard, holds the province together in his iron grip. On the frontiers, Ludwig Schwarzhelm, Emperor’s Champion, must halt the unstoppable onslaught of the Greenskins, while in the Drakwald Forest, Luthor Huss, warrior priest of Sigmar, fights a tide of undead that threatens to sweep away all before it. But, more insidious enemies lurk within the shadows. Witch hunters and spies are the only remedy to such poisons, and none are more accomplished than Lukas Eichmann and Pieter Verstohlen, whose individual quests find them on the trail of ruthless murders and labyrinthine conspiracies that threaten to tear the nation asunder. Will these heroes triumph, or will the myriad evils of the Old World bring ruin to the hope of humanity? This omnibus contains the novels Sword of Justice, Sword of Vengeance and Luthor Huss and the short stories ‘Feast of Horrors', 'Duty and Honour' and 'The March of Doom', by Chris Wraight.

Fantasy roman.

Chrysovalantis Kyriacou examines how memories of the pre-Christian past, Christian militarism, power struggles, and ethnoreligious encounters have left their long-term imprint on Cypriot culture. One of the most impressive examples of this phenomenon is the preservation and transformative adaptation of Byzantine heroic themes, motifs, and symbols in Cypriot folk songs. By combining a variety of written sources and archaeological material in his interdisciplinary examination, the author reconstructs the image of the Byzantine warrior hero in the songs, recovering the mentalities of overshadowed social protagonists and stressing the role of subaltern communities as active agents in the shaping of history.

Emperor's Champion Ludwig Schwarzhelm battles orc invaders whilst trying to get to the bottom of a chaos conspiracy in the province of Averland.

"Charlemagne-Carolus Magnus, Charles the Great, King of the Franks and Emperor of the West-was born in 742 AD, and became the undisputed leader of one of the greatest power blocks in history-The Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne's empire was founded on the fighting prowess of the Franks, a confederacy of ferocious barbarian tribes from the German Rhinelands, and filled the vacuum left by the fall of Ancient Rome. His extensive realm, often enlarged under the pretence of spreading Christianity, included France, Germany, Italy and many other territories. A ruthless campaigner, shrewd politician and statesman and a highly successful general, Charlemagne set the scene for the vast Empire which was to last in various forms right into the twentieth century when it finally collapsed with the fall of Imperial Germany in 1918. This volume in the HEROES AND WARRIORS series tells the story of his life, his campaigns against the 'new barbarians' - the Slavs, Avars and Saxons - and of his heroism and achievements which have been celebrated in history and literature as amongst the most colourful and fascinating in early Europe. Four specially commissioned colour plates, photographs, maps and line drawings illustrate the text."--BOOK COVER.