Gustavus Adolphus (1594--1632) dominated his age: he made Sweden the leading power of Northern Europe, was the principal upholder of the Protestant cause in the Thirty Years War, and was a great administrator as well as a brilliant soldier. His toleration and reforms helped define the development of the modern state. This concise study of his career, by the doyen of modern historians of the North, appeared in 1973. Long unavailable but now revised, expanded, updated and reset, it makes a welcome return in Profiles in Power.
Gustavus Adolphus (1594--1632) dominated his age: he made Sweden the leading power of Northern Europe, was the principal upholder of the Protestant ca...
Benito Mussolini was a brilliant Socialist journalist who in 1914 declared war, put himself at the head if the anti-Socialist movement in Italy, manoeuvred himself into power by 1933 and ruled the country until overthrown in 1943. He was a dynamic but insecure personality, who appeared dictatorial but always had to share power with the military and bureaucratic establishment. Mussolini founded an Empire in Africa and tried to 'make Italians' in his own heroic, war like image, but in fact failed to even control his own family In June 1940, when France fell, he could not resist joining in...
Benito Mussolini was a brilliant Socialist journalist who in 1914 declared war, put himself at the head if the anti-Socialist movement in Italy, ma...
Without Trotsky there would have been no Bolshevik Revolution, but Trotsky was no Bolshevik.
Providing a full account of Trotsky s role during the Russian Civil War and concentrating on his time as an active participant in Russian revolutionary politics, rather than his ideological writings of emigration, Swain gives the student a very different picture of the Bolshevik Commissar of War. This radically new interpretation of Trotsky s career spanning 1905-1917 incorporates the tense relationship between Trotsky and Lenin until 1917, and pays particular attention to the Russian Civil...
Without Trotsky there would have been no Bolshevik Revolution, but Trotsky was no Bolshevik.
Providing a full account of Trotsky s role duri...
An excellent introduction to the formidable life and career of Peter the Great and his impact on Russia. M.S. Anderson assesses his aims and achievements at home and abroad, and examines the pressures and restrictions that shaped his attitudes and limited his actions.
An excellent introduction to the formidable life and career of Peter the Great and his impact on Russia. M.S. Anderson assesses his aims and achieveme...
This invaluable account provides an excellent introduction to the nature and mechanics of Napoleon's power, and how he used it. It explores Napoleon's rise to fame as a soldier of the French Revolution and his aims and achievements as first consul and emperor during the years 1799-1815.
This invaluable account provides an excellent introduction to the nature and mechanics of Napoleon's power, and how he used it. It explores Napoleon's...
Catherine de' Medici (1519-89) was the wife of one king of France and the mother of three more - the last, sorry representatives of the Valois, who had ruled France since 1328. She herself is of preeminent importance to French history, and one of the most controversial of all historical figures. Despised until she was powerful enough to be hated, she was, in her own lifetime and since, the subject of a "Black Legend" that has made her a favourite subject of historical novelists (most notably Alexandre Dumas, whose Reine Margot has recently had new currency on film). Yet there is no recent...
Catherine de' Medici (1519-89) was the wife of one king of France and the mother of three more - the last, sorry representatives of the Valois, who...
