Who are the Freemasons? A powerful and shadowy elite who have manipulated world history through the ages or a more mundane fraternal society devoted to charity, good works and the mutual support of members? Today Freemasonry is a worldwide organisation. Yet secrecy is still demanded of its members, and from the outside, its obscure rituals often seem pointless, baffling and even sinister. In this fascinating book, James Tyrell looks at both the realities and the myths behind Freemasonry and distinguishes one from the other, while providing a concise, readable and compelling account of the...

Images of World War I in the popular consciousness normally involve the bloody attrition of trench warfare, the miles of mud, the shattered earth, and tangled miles of barbed wire. However there was another significant arena of war - the battle for control of the sea. In 1914 in the beginning of the wall, Britain's Maritime supremacy had remained unchallenged for around 100 years. Many expected another Battle of Trafalgar that advances in technology saw a very different kind of warfare with the widespread use of mines, submarines and torpedoes. WW1 at Sea examines the events that led to war...

The CRUSADES provide some of the most striking images of the Middle Ages. They were the stage on which the familiar figures of the great medieval knights, the flower of chivalry, acted out their dramas. They were the battleground on which two great and opposing religions and cultures met. Yet what exactly were the crusades? Why were they fought? What were the results of the great confrontation between Christianity and Islam? And what were the truths behind the myths of chivalry and knighthood? This book examines the bloody, violent, and sometimes farcical reality behind our images of the...

The English Civil War explores a period, which revolutionised government and witnessed the first faltering steps of parliamentarians towards the democratic form of government we know today. It deals with the essentials of the conflict as a readable chronological narrative, beginning with the causes of the war and ending with the execution of King Charles I. The English Civil War presents concisely the essentials of the conflict as a readable chronological narrative, beginning with the causes of the war and ending with the execution of King Charles I. The author describes the celebrated...

SECRET SOCITIES in one form or another have existed throughout the history of human culture. But what is their appeal? What is it that makes so-called respectable people indulge in peculiar ceremonies, dressed in fanciful costumes uttering blood-curdling oaths of loyalty with the treat of death hanging over them should they reveal the inner workings of the cult? Are these organizations simply a way for like-minded followers to get together in a convivial atmosphere for purely social reasons or is there really a dark side to their activities. Are they really trying, as some have suggested,...

Nelson continues to fascinate academics as well as the general public. He is still considered one of Britain's greatest heroes. But why does Nelson still remain such a prominent figure in the national imagination? With 2005 being the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar, James Tyrell embarks on a reappraisal of Nelson, the myth and the man. Beginning with Nelson's early life and an analysis of the condition and practice of the Navy at the time of Nelson's entry into service, Tyrell goes on to examine Nelson's naval battles before Trafalgar, particularly the pivotal Battle of the Nile in...

Western civilization began with the Greeks. From the highpoint of the fifth century BC through the cultural triumphs of the Alexandrian era to their impact on the developing Roman empire, the Greeks shaped the philosophy, art, architecture and literature of the Mediterranean world. Beginning with the Homeric period, once believed to be a realm of myth, James Tyrell takes the reader on a journey through twelve centuries and more of Greek culture. He shows what archaeologists have revealed of the Trojan Wars and Mycenae, outlines the glories of Athens at its height and provides a gripping...

According to Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of the men who travelled to Antarctica with Captain Scott, 'Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.' Despite this there has never been a shortage of volunteers willing to endure the bad times in pursuit of the glory that polar exploration sometimes brings. James Tyrell, recounts the memorable stories of those who have risked their lives by entering the white wastelands of the Arctic and the Antarctic, from the compelling tales of Scott, Shackleton and franklin to lesser known heroes...

No-one in the annals of crime is capable of arousing such passionate debate as the perpetrator of the Whitechapel Murders in 1888. Was he a demented Royal, a Masonic assassin, a sexually frustrated artist, a member of the Czarist secret police, a crazed reformist or even an escaped gorilla? More than a century has passed since this unknown killer murdered East End prostitutes under the very noses of the police and yet we seem no closer to uncovering the Ripper's identity. Countless volumes have been written by warring researchers, seemingly unable to agree even on the number of his victims....