Published to coincide with the centenary of the end of World War I, this new, thoroughly revised edition of Bradt's World War I Battlefields is the only compact practical travel guide to cover both French and Belgian battlefield sites. Produced in a lightweight and portable format, the guide features all the main memorials and museums alongside practical information on how to book the best guided tours or find the resting place of family members lost in battle. New for this edition are updates on special projects opened in 2017 to mark the centenary of the Battles of Arras, Vimy Ridge and Cambrai, along with new walking or cycling trails based on major sites and towns or on 'themes' such as well-known wartime poets, including the 90-km long Remembrance Cycle Trail linking Arras and Amiens. Also new are child-friendly tour suggestions, information on new apps to aid independent exploration, and details of the new HI Belgium Pass.Also included in this new edition is information on the new poppy cenotaph in Ypres, a full list of events to commemorate the Battles of Messines and Passchendaele, the new 14-18 trail created with 1/25 scale models at Mini-Europe, Brussels, the Menin Road exhibition, Flanders Fields by boat tours and a special focus on Women of the War.More than 100 countries took part in World War One, and this guide covers information relevant to many, from Australia and New Zealand to South Africa, Canada and the USA. New for this edition are details of the new information centre focusing on Arras and the Battle of Vimy Ridge, the Sir John Monash Centre and the Marne 14-18 Interpretation Centre.The authors, John Ruler and Emma Thomson, are both members of the British Guild of Travel Writers and have each previously written a Bradt guide on the area. Read more

Covering the important WW1 Battles of Ypres, including the notorious Passchendaele, this guidebook takes readers on a historic trip through some of the well-known and most important sites of the area. This book, part of a new series of guides, is designed conveniently in a small size, for those who have only limited time to visit, or who are simply interested in as an introduction to the historic battlefields, whether on the ground or from an armchair. They contain selections from the Holts' more detailed guides of the most popular and accessible sites plus hand tourist information, capturing the essential features of the Battles. The book contains many full colour maps and photographs and detailed instructions on what to see and where to visit. Read more

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer turns his eye to the seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age Twenty years ago, Benjamin Moser followed a love affair to an ancient Dutch town. In order to make sense of this new place, he threw himself into the Dutch museums. Soon, he found himself unearthing the strange, inspiring and sometimes terrifying stories of the artists who shaped one of the most luminous moments in the history of human creativity, the Dutch Golden Age.As he explored the hidden world of the Dutch Masters (and one Mistress), Moser met a crowd of fascinating personalities: the stormy Rembrandt, the intimate Ter Borch, the mysterious Vermeer. Through their art, he got to know their country, too: from Pieter Saenredam's translucent churches to Paulus Potter's muddy barnyards, and from Pieter de Hooch's cozy hearths to Jacob van Ruisdael's tragic trees. Over the years, Moser found himself on increasingly intimate terms with these centuries-dead artists, and found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions he was. Why do we make art? What is art, anyway - and what is an artist? What does it mean to succeed as an artist, and what does it mean to fail?The Upside-Down World is an invitation to ask these questions, and to turn them on their heads: to look, and then to look again. It is a brilliant, colourful and learned book for anyone, whether lifelong scholar or curious tourist, who has ever felt the lure of the Dutch galleries. It shows us art, and artists, as we have never seen them before. Read more

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer turns his eye to the seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age Twenty years ago, Benjamin Moser followed a love affair to an ancient Dutch town. In order to make sense of this new place, he threw himself into the Dutch museums. Soon, he found himself unearthing the strange, inspiring and sometimes terrifying stories of the artists who shaped one of the most luminous moments in the history of human creativity, the Dutch Golden Age.As he explored the hidden world of the Dutch Masters (and one Mistress), Moser met a crowd of fascinating personalities: the stormy Rembrandt, the intimate Ter Borch, the mysterious Vermeer. Through their art, he got to know their country, too: from Pieter Saenredam's translucent churches to Paulus Potter's muddy barnyards, and from Pieter de Hooch's cozy hearths to Jacob van Ruisdael's tragic trees. Over the years, Moser found himself on increasingly intimate terms with these centuries-dead artists, and found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions he was. Why do we make art? What is art, anyway - and what is an artist? What does it mean to succeed as an artist, and what does it mean to fail?The Upside-Down World is an invitation to ask these questions, and to turn them on their heads: to look, and then to look again. It is a brilliant, colourful and learned book for anyone, whether lifelong scholar or curious tourist, who has ever felt the lure of the Dutch galleries. It shows us art, and artists, as we have never seen them before. Read more

'An evocatively thoughtful wider history of the race, the war and the peace' GUARDIAN'Occasionally funny and regularly poignant, brilliantly focused in its research . . . His drive, wit and curiosity inform Zone Rouge . . . gently profound and genuinely moving' HERALDThe Circuit des Champs de Bataille (the Tour of the Battlefields) was held in 1919, less than six months after the end of the First World War. It covered 2,000 kilometres and was raced in appalling conditions across the battlefields of the Western Front, otherwise known as the Zone Rouge. The race was so tough that only 21 riders finished, and it was never staged again.With one of the most demanding routes ever to feature in a bicycle race, and plagued by appalling weather conditions, the Circuit des Champs de Bataille was beyond gruelling, but today its extraordinary story is largely forgotten. Many of the riders came to the event straight from the army and had to ride 18-hour stages through sleet and snow across the battlefields on which they had fought, and lost friends and family, only a few months before. But in addition to the hellish conditions there were moments of high comedy, even farce.The rediscovered story of the Circuit des Champs de Bataille is an epic tale of human endurance, suffering and triumph over extreme adversity. Read more

A Sunday Times History Book of the YearShortlisted for The Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award'No Briton has written better than Winder about Europe' - Sunday TimesIn AD 843, the three surviving grandsons of the great Emperor Charlemagne met at Verdun. After years of bitter squabbles over who would inherit the family land, they finally decided to divide the territory and go their separate ways. In a moment of staggering significance, one grandson inherited what became France, another Germany and the third Lotharingia: the chunk that initially divided the other two. The dynamic between these three great zones has dictated much of our subsequent fate.In this beguiling, hilarious and compelling book Simon Winder retraces how both from west and from east any number of ambitious characters have tried and failed to grapple with these Lotharingians, who ultimately became Dutch, German, Belgian, French, Luxembourgers and Swiss. Over many centuries, not only has Lotharingia brought forth many of Europe's greatest artists, inventors and thinkers, but it has also reduced many a would-be conqueror to helpless tears of rage and frustration.Joining Germania and Danubia in Simon Winder's endlessly fascinating retelling of European history, Lotharingia is a personal, wonderful and gripping story. Read more

A guide to these historic Belgian landmarks of the First World War, with maps and photos.   Covering the Battles of Ypres, including the notorious Passchendaele, this guidebook takes readers on a historic trip through some of the best-known and most important sites of the area in Belgium. Part of a series of guides, it serves as an introduction to the historic battlefields, whether on the ground or from an armchair.   Included are selections from the Holts' more detailed guides of the most popular and accessible sites, many full color maps and photographs, and detailed instructions on what to see and where to visit. Read more

This modern and GPS located guidebook to the WW1 battlefields of Ypres and the Somme includes contextual information, maps, photographs and personal stories. This is the book that gives you the experience of a professional guide but allows you to ‘dip in’ andgo at your own pace in your own car. Many people visit the First World War battlefields and leave disappointed, not understanding the connection to the sites they go to or their significance. This guidebook by an experienced teacher, explains the sites, the context and the stories in a simple and easily understood way so that you can enjoy your visit more fully.The book is new and fit for the modern day with GPS locations that can be easily looked up on smart phones and other devices and mapdiagrams which show how to get the most out of the sites when there. There is also contextual information, diagrams and tables to help the understanding of the sites.The book is packed with over 100 maps, illustrations and photographs showing locations, routes and conditions at the time. It also includespersonal stories, the ones normally reserved for the professional guides. It is less about the big picture of brigades and armies and more about what happened on the ground and how you can link the stories to what you can still see. Read more

'An evocatively thoughtful wider history of the race, the war and the peace' GUARDIAN'Occasionally funny and regularly poignant, brilliantly focused in its research . . . His drive, wit and curiosity inform Zone Rouge . . . gently profound and genuinely moving' HERALDThe Circuit des Champs de Bataille (the Tour of the Battlefields) was held in 1919, less than six months after the end of the First World War. It covered 2,000 kilometres and was raced in appalling conditions across the battlefields of the Western Front, otherwise known as the Zone Rouge. The race was so tough that only 21 riders finished, and it was never staged again.With one of the most demanding routes ever to feature in a bicycle race, and plagued by appalling weather conditions, the Circuit des Champs de Bataille was beyond gruelling, but today its extraordinary story is largely forgotten. Many of the riders came to the event straight from the army and had to ride 18-hour stages through sleet and snow across the battlefields on which they had fought, and lost friends and family, only a few months before. But in addition to the hellish conditions there were moments of high comedy, even farce.The rediscovered story of the Circuit des Champs de Bataille is an epic tale of human endurance, suffering and triumph over extreme adversity. Read more

A biography of the boldest and most unsettling of the early modern philosophers, Spinoza, which examines the man's life, relationships, writings, and career, while also forcing us to rethink how we previously understood Spinoza's reception in his own time and in the years following his death.The boldest and most unsettling of the major early modern philosophers, Spinoza, had a much greater, if often concealed, impact on the international intellectual scene and on the early Enlightenment than philosophers, historians, and political theorists have conventionally tended to recognize. Europe-wide efforts to prevent the reading public and university students learning about Spinoza, the man and his work, in the years immediately after his death in 1677, dominated much of his early reception owing to the revolutionary implications of his thought for philosophy, religion, practical ethics and lifestyle, Bible criticism, and political theory. Nevertheless, contrary to what has sometimes been maintained, his general impact was immediate, very widespread, and profound. One of the main objectives of the book is to show how early and how deeply Leibniz, Bayle, Arnauld, Henry More, Anne Conway, Richard Baxter, Robert Boyle, Henry Oldenburg, Pierre-Daniel Huet, Richard Simon, and Nicholas Steno, among many others, were affected by and led to wrestle with his principal ideas. There have been surprisingly few biographies of Spinoza, given his fundamental importance in intellectual history and history of philosophy, Bible criticism, and political thought. Jonathan I. Israel has written a biography which provides more detail and context about Spinoza's life, family, writings, circle of friends, highly unusual career and networking, and early reception than its predecessors. Weaving the circumstances of his life and thought into a detailed biography has also led to several notable instances of nuancing or revising our notions of how to interpret certain of his assertions and philosophical claims, and how to understand the complex international reaction to his work during his life-time and in the years immediately following his death. Read more

A Sunday Times History Book of the Year 2019Shortlisted for The Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award'No Briton has written better than Winder about Europe' Sunday TimesAt the heart of western Europe lies a huge swath of land, stretching from the mud and fogs of the North Sea coast, down through countless market towns, ports, fortresses and ancient cathedrals, through a mass of river systems and forests, all the way to the great barrier of the Alps. Divided by their languages, religions and frontiers, everyone living there shares one thing: that they are inhabitants of a lost part of Europe – Lotharingia.In his highly entertaining new book Simon Winder tells the story of this ghostly but persistent presence. In AD 843, the three surviving grandsons of the great Emperor Charlemagne met at Verdun. After years of bitter squabbles over who would inherit the family land, they finally decided to divide the territory and go their separate ways. In a moment of staggering significance, one grandson inherited what became France, another Germany and the third Lotharingia, the chunk that initially divided the other two chunks: ‘the lands of Lothar’. The dynamic between these three great zones has dictated much of our subsequent fate.Lotharingia is a history of this in-between land and joins the equally fascinating Germania and Danubia in Simon Winder’s personal exploration of Europe. In this beguiling, hilarious and compelling book we retrace how both from west and from east any number of ambitious characters have tried and failed to grapple with these people. Over many centuries, not only has Lotharingia brought forth many of Europe’s greatest artists, inventors and thinkers, but it has also reduced many a would-be conqueror to helpless tears of rage and frustration.'He is a master of the art of making history both funny and fun, with never any loss of seriousness. Once again he brings Germany bouncing back to life.' Simon Jenkins, author of A Short History of Europe. Read more

For hundreds of years battle has raged over the area of northern France and Belgium known as "the fatal avenue". This book guides readers on a journey through the terrain as it is today, seeking to recreate on each walk the atmosphere of the battles through the stories of the men who fought them. Each chapter is illustrated with a map of the battlefield area, and several sketch maps showing troop movements and local points of interest. The battlefields covered are those of Agincourt (1415), Waterloo (1815), Mons and Le Cateau (1914), the Somme (1916), Arras (1940) and Operation Goodwood (1944). Read more

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer turns his eye to the seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age Twenty years ago, Benjamin Moser followed a love affair to an ancient Dutch town. In order to make sense of this new place, he threw himself into the Dutch museums. Soon, he found himself unearthing the strange, inspiring and sometimes terrifying stories of the artists who shaped one of the most luminous moments in the history of human creativity, the Dutch Golden Age.As he explored the hidden world of the Dutch Masters (and one Mistress), Moser met a crowd of fascinating personalities: the stormy Rembrandt, the intimate Ter Borch, the mysterious Vermeer. Through their art, he got to know their country, too: from Pieter Saenredam's translucent churches to Paulus Potter's muddy barnyards, and from Pieter de Hooch's cozy hearths to Jacob van Ruisdael's tragic trees. Over the years, Moser found himself on increasingly intimate terms with these centuries-dead artists, and found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions he was. Why do we make art? What is art, anyway - and what is an artist? What does it mean to succeed as an artist, and what does it mean to fail?The Upside-Down World is an invitation to ask these questions, and to turn them on their heads: to look, and then to look again. It is a brilliant, colourful and learned book for anyone, whether lifelong scholar or curious tourist, who has ever felt the lure of the Dutch galleries. It shows us art, and artists, as we have never seen them before. Read more

'Outstanding . . . thought-provoking, readable and informative' SoldierOne hundred years on...On 18 July 1917, a heavy artillery barrage was unleashed by the Allied forces against an entrenched German army outside the town of Ypres. it was to be the opening salvo of one of the most ferociously fought and debilitating encounters of the First World War.Few battles would encapsulate the utter futility of the war better that what became known as the Battle of Passchendaele. By the time the British and Canadian forces finally captured Passchendaele village on 6 November, the Allies had suffered over 271,000 casualties and the German army over 217,000.Passchendaele: Requiem for Doomed Youth shows how ordinary men on both sides endured this constant state of siege, with a very real awareness that they were being gradually, deliberately felled. Here, Paul Ham tells the story of an army caught in the grip of an extraordinary power struggle – both global and national. As Prime Minister Lloyd George and Commander Haig’s relationship deteriorated beyond repair, so a terrible battle of attrition was needlessly and painfully prolonged.Ham lays down a powerful challenge to the ways in which we have previously seen this monumental battle. Through an examination of the culpability of governments and military commanders in a catastrophe that destroyed the best part of a generation, Paul Ham argues that Passchendaele, far from being a breakthrough moment, was the battle that nearly lost the Allies the war.‘Paul Ham brings new tools to the job, unearthing fresh evidence of a deeply disturbing sort. He has a magpie eye for the telling detail.’ Ben Macintyre, The Times Read more

This guide to the battlefields of Ypres is intended for both the casual tourist and the serious scholar. Sanctuary Wood and the village of Hooge saw intense fighting during World War I, being situated for much of the time in the front line of the notorious Ypres Salient. Beginning at the museum at the wood itself, the book takes the reader on an explanatory tour of the immediate area, which includes the neighbouring British cemetery. Text and supporting photographs help to explain the significance of individual burials, such as that of the German aviator, Hans Roser, the victim of an air battle with the Royal Flying Corps pilot, Lance Hawker, who for his exploits in this action and others on the same day was awarded the first VC for aerial combat. Between May and September 1915, Hooge was rarely out of the newspapers, and the fierce battles that took place here - including the first use of the dreaded "Flamenwerfer" against British troops - are described in a series of chapters supported by maps and contemporary accounts. Also recounted are the exploits of Canadian troops in June 1916, when valuable ground was lost and almost immediately recaptured. (In one incident, the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry came very close to losing their regimental colour to the Germans.) Rather less violent, but typical aspects of World War I life are covered with sections of a trench raid (1918) and the usual routine of an engineer officer in the trenches. The guide directs readers to view certain areas and explains what they would be seeing more than 70 years ago - whether it would be the British or German lines. Names that were given to geographical features at the time of the fighting are explained, together with military terms and methods of operation. Read more