Early World History

Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World demonstrates that piracy is key to explaining the surprising longevity of Spain's Asian empire, which survived the Age of Revolutions and endured almost to the end of the nineteenth century. It offers important new insight into piracy's impact on the trajectory of globalization and European imperial expansion in maritime Asia.

From the Stono Rebellion in 1739 to the Haitian Revolution of 1791 to Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831, slave insurrections have been understood as emblematic rejections of enslavement, the most powerful and, perhaps, the only way for slaves to successfully challenge the brutal system they endured. In The World That Fear Made, Jason T. Sharples orients the mirror to those in power who were preoccupied with their exposure to insurrection.

He was seven years old when the crown was placed on his head—and for the next forty-two years, he ruled one of the most powerful empires on earth. Theodosius II for Beginners: The Boy Emperor Who Shaped the Christian World is your invitation into the life of the emperor who didn't march with armies or shout from chariots—but quietly rewrote the rules of empire, law, and faith from inside the palaces of Constantinople. This is not another story about Rome falling. It's the story of how it endured. Discover how a child emperor became the architect of the longest-lasting empire in history....

Over the span of two hundred years, Great Britain established, governed, lost, and reconstructed an empire that embraced three continents and two oceanic worlds. The British ruled this empire by correlating incoming information about the conduct of subjects and aliens in imperial spaces with norms of good governance developed in London. Officials derived these norms by studying the histories of government contained in the official records of both the state and corporations and located in repositories known as archives.

Beginning with the Continental Navy, Small Boats and Daring Men traces maritime missions through the wars of the early republic, from the coast of modern-day Libya to the rivers and inlets of the Chesapeake Bay. Armstrong brings a uniquely informed perspective to his subject; and his work is at once an exciting narrative of danger and combat at sea and a thoroughgoing analysis of how these events fit into concepts of American sea power.

Embark on a thrilling journey through time with 500 Interesting Facts About the Age of Discovery, that bring history to life, and uncover the stories that shaped the world as we know it today. This audiobook is not just a collection of dates and names; it’s a gateway to an era of unparalleled exploration, innovation, and conquest. Examine the daring voyages of Portuguese, Spanish, British, French, and Dutch explorers.

Although many Americans consider the establishment of the colonies as the birth of this country, in fact early America existed long before the arrival of the Europeans. From coast to coast, Native Americans had created enduring cultures, and the subsequent European invasion remade much of the land and society. In New Worlds for All, Colin G. Calloway explores the unique and vibrant new cultures that Indians and Europeans forged together in early America.

In the waning years of Queen Victoria’s reign, a brilliant daughter is born to an aristocratic, military family in Prussia. A quirk of inheritance law allows Margarethe von Stahle to inherit her family’s titles. Her elders collaborate to educate her to take on her future duties, which include administering her family estates and supporting an order of nuns.Margarethe’s curiosity and precocity delight and perplex her teachers as they try to mold her. Her father trains her with his military cadets. A retired opera singer teaches her how to sing. Her grandaunt, headmistress of the ...

In 1805 and 1806, Aaron Burr, former vice president of the newly formed American republic, traveled through the Trans-Appalachian West gathering support for a mysterious enterprise, for which he was arrested and tried for treason in 1807. This book explores the political and cultural forces that shaped how Americans made sense of the uncertain rumors and reports about Burr's intentions and movements, and examines what the resulting crisis reveals about their anxieties concerning the new nation's fragile union and uncertain republic.

Who would have thought that from its humble beginnings as a small group of followers of a Jewish man called Jesus that Christianity would become, less than 2,000 years later, the most widespread religion on Earth? Christianity’s birth and development is a vast, complex story filled with setbacks and contradictions but also with triumphs.

As a young man growing up in early twentieth- century Germany, Arthur Waldmann is introduced to the mysteries of the Jewish Kabbalah by his eccentric grandmother, and dreams of traveling to a Heavenly Academy of ancient sages in a distant galaxy. When he discovers that he cannot achieve this goal by spiritual means, he decides he will reach for the stars through the emerging technology of rocket propulsion. Waldmann comes to believe that he is the chosen one to lead mankind's conquest of space, but soon discovers he must confront brilliant rivals with equal claim to the title, one of whom ...

Three events transpired in 1492 in the Iberian Peninsula, which had tremendous ramifications for years to come. The first was the conquest of Granada, i.e., the last Muslim stronghold, by Castilian and Aragonese forces. The victory ended eight hundred years of Islam-ic rule. The conquest of Granada eventually also led to the conversions of many Muslims to Christianity, the phenomenon of Crypto-Islam, and the eventual expulsion of the descendants of these converts in 1609.

Most scientists believe the evolution of humans has a history nearly as long as life itself. Anatomically modern humans and all other life that has existed on the planet first came about from the single-celled microorganisms that emerged approximately four billion years ago. Through the processes of mutation and natural selection, all forms of life developed, and this continuous lineage of life makes it difficult to say precisely when one species completely separates from another.

An unbelievable series of events led to the establishment of the Northwest Electro-development Laboratory, later the U.S. Bureau of Mines Albany Research Center. Though the fledgling lab had difficulty securing staff due to World War II, world-renown metallurgist William J. Kroll was hired early on as a consultant after fleeing Nazi occupation. Kroll, who had pioneered a method for producing commercial titanium, worked with his core group of associates to develop malleable zirconium, just as a need arose for the little-known metal.

The Olmec people are widely recognized as the first major civilization of Mexico and are thus generally regarded as the mother civilization of Mesoamerica, making them the people from which all subsequent Mesoamerican cultures derived. By and large, the Olmec culture is perhaps best identifiable by their so-called colossal heads, mammoth basalt head-statues wearing helmet-like headdresses found throughout Olmec habitation sites.

Are you curious about how the world has evolved to where it is today? Do you wish you made a better understanding of how all of the world is connected to each other? The history of the world can fascinate even the least interested party. For thousands of years, every culture and civilization has looked to the past to learn from history. History can inspire, teach, and provide an explanation for how things and institutions have come to be.

When Samuel de Champlain founded the colony of Quebec in 1608, he established elaborate gardens where he sowed French seeds he had brought with him and experimented with indigenous plants that he found in nearby fields and forests. In A Not-So-New World, Christopher Parsons observes how it was that French colonists began to learn about Native environments and claimed a mandate to cultivate vegetation that did not differ all that much from that which they had left behind.

In 1990, though no one knew it then, a fearless group of players changed the sport of soccer in the United States forever. Young, bronzed, and mulletted, they were America’s finest athletes in a sport that America loved to hate. Even sportswriters rooted against them. Yet this team defied massive odds and qualified for the World Cup, making possible America’s current obsession with the world’s most popular game. New Kids in the World Cup is the origin story of modern American soccer.

World War I saw the advent of combat aviation. Pilots from all over the world took to the skies in open-air biplanes armed with machine guns. They were daredevil pioneers. Newspapers filled pages with stories on the danger and heroism of aerial combat. The romance of hunting and evading enemies in the clouds turned ace fighter pilots into the equivalent of modern knights. This book contains first-hand history of the dawn of combat aviation in the First World War.

The Berlin blockade brought former allies to the brink of war. Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union defeated and began their occupation of Germany in 1945, and within a few years, the Soviets and their Western partners were jockeying for control of their former foe. Attempting to thwart the Allied powers' plans to create a unified West German government, the Soviets blocked rail and road access to the western sectors of Berlin in June 1948.