In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War William Howard Taft on the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in history to Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea. Roosevelt's glamorous twenty-one year old daughter Alice served as mistress of the cruise, which included senators and congressmen. On this trip, Taft concluded secret agreements in Roosevelt's name. In 2005, a century later, James Bradley traveled in the wake of Roosevelt's mission and discovered what had transpired in Honolulu, Tokyo, Manila, Beijing and Seoul. In 1905, Roosevelt was bully-confident and made secret agreements that he though would secure America's westward push into the Pacific. Instead, he lit the long fuse on the Asian firecrackers that would singe America's hands for a century.

In November 1923 the Royal Navy dispatched what was named the Special Service Squadron on a ten-month tour around the British Empire. Led by the battlecruiser HMS 'Hood', the pride of the Royal Navy and, at the time, the largest ship in the world, and including the battlecruiser 'Renown' and the First Light Cruiser Squadron, the role of the Special Service Squadron was to 'show the flag' in a public relations exercise and to strengthen ties across the Empire. Much publicised, the cruise served as a subtle reminder that in the aftermath of the Great War, Britannia still ruled the waves. This book charts the situation faced by Great Britain and the Royal Navy in the years immediately after the Great War, and details the origins of the cruise before charting the course of the expedition.

Set sail and dive into Europe's magnificent port cities with Rick Steves Mediterranean Cruise Ports! Inside you'll find: Rick's expert advice on making the most of your time on a cruise and fully experiencing each city, with thorough coverage of 23 ports of call Practical travel strategies including how to choose and book your cruise, adjust to life on board on the ship, and save money Self-guided walks and tours of each port city so you can hit the best sights, sample authentic cuisine, and get to know the culture, even with a short amount of time Essential logistics including step-by-step instructions for arriving at each terminal, getting into town, and finding necessary services like ATMs and pharmacies Rick's reliable tips and candid advice on how to beat the crowds, skip lines, and avoid tourist traps Helpful reference photos throughout and full-color maps of each city Useful tools like mini-phrasebooks, detailed instructions for any visa requirements, hotel and airport recommendations for cruise access cities, and what to do if you miss your ship Full list of coverage: Provence, Marseille, Toulon and the Port of La Seyne-sur-Mer, Cassis, Aix-en-Provence, Nice, Villefrance-sur-Mer, Cap Ferrat, Monaco, Cannes, Antibes, Florence, Pisa, Lucca, the Port of Livorno, Rome, the Port of Civitaveccia, Naples, Sorrento, Capri, Pompeii, Herculaneum, the Amalfi Coast, Venice, Split, Dubrovnik, Athens, the Port of Piraeus, Mykonos, Santorini, Corfu, Olympia and the Port of Katakolo, Crete and the Port of Heraklion, Rhodes, Istanbul, Ephesus, and The Port of Kusadasi Maximize your time and savor every moment in port with Rick's practical tips, thoughtful advice, and reliable expertise. Heading north? Pick up Rick Steves Scandinavian & Northern European Cruise Ports.

For six centuries the Republic of Venice was a maritime empire, its sovereign power extending throughout much of the eastern Mediterranean – an empire of coasts, islands and isolated fortresses by which, as Wordsworth wrote, the mercantile Venetians 'held the gorgeous east in fee'. Jan Morris reconstructs the whole of this glittering dominion in the form of a sea-voyage, travelling along the historic Venetian trade routes from Venice itself to Greece, Crete and Cyprus. It is a traveller's book, geographically arranged but wandering at will from the past to the present, evoking not only contemporary landscapes and sensations but also the characters, the emotions and the tumultuous events of the past. The first such work ever written about the Venetian ‘Stato da Mar’, it is an invaluable historical companion for visitors to Venice itself and for travellers through the lands the Doges once ruled.

Gavin Francis fulfilled a lifetime's ambition when he spent fourteen months as the basecamp doctor at Halley, a profoundly isolated British research station on the Caird Coast of Antarctica. So remote, it is said to be easier to evacuate a casualty from the International Space Station than it is to bring someone out of Halley in winter. Antarctica offered a year of unparalleled silence and solitude, with few distractions and a very little human history, but also a rare opportunity to live among emperor penguins, the only species truly at home in he Antarctic. Following Penguins throughout the year –– from a summer of perpetual sunshine to months of winter darkness –– Gavin Francis explores the world of great beauty conjured from the simplest of elements, the hardship of living at 50 c below zero and the unexpected comfort that the penguin community bring. Empire Antarctica is the story of one man and his fascination with the world's loneliest continent, as well as the emperor penguins who weather the winter with him. Combining an evocative narrative with a sublime sensitivity to the natural world, this is travel writing at its very best

A “wide-ranging, vivid” narrative history of one of the most coveted and complex regions of the world: the Caribbean (The Observer). Ever since Christopher Columbus stepped off the Santa Maria and announced that he had arrived in the Orient, the Caribbean has been a stage for projected fantasies and competition between world powers. In Empire’s Crossroads, British American historian Carrie Gibson offers a panoramic view of the region from the northern rim of South America up to Cuba and its rich, important history. After that fateful landing in 1492, the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, and even the Swedes, Scots, and Germans sought their fortunes in the islands for the next two centuries. These fraught years gave way to a booming age of sugar, horrendous slavery, and extravagant wealth, as well as the Haitian Revolution and the long struggles for independence that ushered in the modern era. Gibson tells not only of imperial expansion—European and American—but also of life as it is lived in the islands, from before Columbus through the tumultuous twentieth century. Told “in fluid, colorful prose peppered with telling anecdotes,” Empire’s Crossroads provides an essential account of five centuries of history (Foreign Affairs). “Judicious, readable and extremely well-informed . . . Too many people know the Caribbean only as a tourist destination; [Gibson] takes us, instead, into its fascinating, complex and often tragic past. No vacation there will ever feel quite the same again.” —Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars and King Leopold’s Ghost

On holiday in the capital city, cop Jack Cato gets a glimpse of the Emperor-and realizes what he's looking at is a supposedly dead shape- shifter. The imposter is his mortal enemy, still alive and again on the run. Now, the fate of the Empire-and Cato's own honor-are at stake.

'This important new volume reconstructs the forms of production, distribution and exhibition of films made in and about the colonies. It then ties them to wider theoretical issues about film and liberalism, spectacle and political economy, representation and rule. The result is one of the first volumes to examine how imperial rule is intimately tied to the emergence of documentary as a form and, indeed, how the history of cinema is at the same time the history of Empire.' BRIAN LARKIN, Barnard College 'This superb collection of new scholarship shows how cinema both communicated and aided the imperialist agenda throughout the twentieth century. In doing so, it shows film can be understood as one of the tools of empire, as much as the technology of weaponry or modes of administration: a means of education and indoctrination in the colonies and at home.' TOM GUNNING, University of Chicago At its height in 1919, the British Empire claimed 58 countries, 400 million subjects, and 14 million square miles of ground. Empire and Film brings together leading international scholars to examine the integral role cinema played in the control, organisation, and governance of this diverse geopolitical space. The essays reveal the complex interplay between the political and economic control essential to imperialism and the emergence and development of cinema in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. Contributors address how the production, distribution and exhibition of film were utilised by state and industrial and philanthropic institutions to shape the subject positions of coloniser and colonised; to demarcate between 'civilised' and 'primitive' and codify difference; and to foster a political economy of imperialism that was predicated on distinctions between core and periphery. The generic forms of colonial cinema were, consequently, varied: travelogues mapped colonial spaces; actuality films re-presented spectacles of royal authority and imperial conquest and conflict; home movies rendered colonial self-representation; state-financed newsreels and documentaries fostered political and economic control and the 'education' of British and colonial subjects; philanthropic and industrial organisations sponsored films to expand Western models of capitalism; British and American film companies made films of imperial adventure. These films circulated widely in Britain and the empire, and were sustained through the establishment of imperial networks of distribution and exhibition, including in particular innovative mobile exhibition circuits and non-theatrical spaces like schools, museums and civic centres. Empire and Film is a significant revision to the historical and conceptual frameworks of British cinema history, and is a major contribution to the history of cinema as a global form that emerged amid, and in dialogue with, the global flows of imperialism. The book is produced in conjunction with a major website housing freely available digitised archival films and materials relating to British colonial cinema, www.colonialfilm.org.uk, and a companion volume entitled Film and the End of Empire.

In this trilogy set in the Deathstalker universe, the New York Times–bestselling author delivers “lots of action” and “exotic dangers” (Science Fiction Chronicle). Gathered here into a single volume, the novels in Simon R. Green’s Twilight of the Empire series take place before Owen Deathstalker’s rebellion in the same universe. An empire that once peacefully united galaxies in harmony is now rotten with corruption and ruled by a mad empress, threatened by outside alien invasion and violent internal rebellion. Against this background, “Green moves his plot at top speed” and delivers action-packed adventures set on three different worlds (Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine). Mistworld: A rebel planet, cut off from the fruits of the Empire by a punishing blockade, Mistworld is a refuge for criminals, traitors, and exiles. Under a harsh medieval order, the strong rule, the weak perish, and everyone steals. A legendary Siren, possessed of terrible mental powers, Investigator Topaz is one of the few honest ones left. And when the Empire attempts to attack the psionic shield that protects Mistworld, she is the only one who can save them, whether they deserve it or not . . . Ghostworld: Ten years ago, the indigenous people of Unseeli rose up in rebellion against the Empire. Captain John Silence led the massacre that left the natives extinct and the planet uninhabited, except for the engineers who mine its invaluable metals. But when communication is abruptly cut off from the mining settlement, Captain Silence must return to find out what’s gone wrong—and confront the ghosts that still haunt his nightmares . . . Hellworld: Disgraced naval officer Scott Hunter is given a choice: get drummed out of the Imperial starfleet or join a suicide mission with the Hell Squad. One-way planetary scouts, the Hell Squad is made up of outcasts who explore new worlds for colonization. They survive or they die, but they never come back. Hunter leads a motley team of hard-nosed rebels to the volcano planet of Wolf IV, where they discover an ancient city and awaken a race of aliens. And now it’s kill or be killed . . .