The story of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail is well known; less so is that of the coming of Christianity to Britain at around the time of the Roman invasion. It is generally assumed that both these legends revolve around town of Glastonbury, yet the paucity of evidence for this assumption has always been troubling to those who like their history to be founded on fact. In this extraordinary book, Adrian Gilbert reveals the location to be not just of the true 'Avalon' or 'Glastonbury' but of many other sites crucial to the Arthurian legend. He shows how the core teachings of Christianity were kept secret by a dynasty of Welsh kings and saints and later (after the Norman invasions) by their surviving descendants. For centuries this remnant of the Brittano-Welsh nobility, still living in 'Avalon', kept alive a hope: they prayed that one day a new Arthur, one with the holy blood of the family of Mary flowing in his veins, would sit once more on the throne of Britain. Extraordinary as it may seem, this hope may soon be realised - for through the late Diana, Princess of Wales, our own Prince William, whose middle name is indeed Arthur, is so descended.
Jos Clarence, 25, good-looking, single and highly intelligent is a lecturer at University College London. His thesis: 'Ancient mathematical systems with particular reference to Mesopotamian astrology at the time of Hammurabi', is also expected to to win prizes. Yet his world, and that of his flatmate Pete, an investment banker who's a friend from Cambridge, and Pete's girlfriend Cass, a flirtatious, American blonde with a worrisome past, is about to be turned upside down when he inherits an old cottage in Wales from a great-aunt he barely knew. More than that he finds himself at the beginning of a modern-day, Arthurian adventure: one that requires he solve the riddles contained in a poem, written in the form of Welsh Triads: 'Two kings contested Rheged and both lost their crowns. Three ladies acted disgracefully: the White Shadow, the Lady in White and the Lady Silver-orb of the Lake. Yet a son of the last should one day sit on the throne of the Bear. Twelve knights came and spoiled Morganwg but one more married an heiress. Edward sat on his throne but couldn't find the sword. Unless a son of royal blood will wield of the Hard-Cleft, then the true heir will not sit on the throne of Brutus. Three earls from one family; a father and a son by their necks did swing and another was beheaded. Three earls sleep together, join them if you would take eagle's wings. Embrace your destiny and see the throne of God.' Jos' life becomes a game a chess with himself a pawn at the mercy of 'Annwyn', the invisible world of spirit that controls our fates. In the course of his adventures he must overcome an adversary who's motives, though not at first as clear as his own, are equally compelling. To fulfil his destiny, Jos and his friends will be forced to fight battles at many different levels: legal, emotional, physical and eventually in the unseen world of 'Annwyn' itself. Will help from a 'Merlin-like figure, 'Aquila', be enough? Will they be up to the challenge of saving the life of the heir to Arthur's throne? This is Adrian Gilbert's first novel and it will leave you hungry for more. Well-known for his intricate researches into ancient mysteries and such non-fiction block-busters as 'The Orion Mystery', 'The Mayan Prophecies' and 'Signs in the Sky', his new book is truly mind-blowing in its scope. Like Dan Brown's 'Da Vinci Code', 'Shadow of the Dragon' brings together adventure with real history, genuine esotericism and identifiable locations. Furthermore, the books the heroes refer to as they attempt to solve the riddle, the genealogies they investigates and the scenario of ancient history they research, are all genuine. This means that for those who wish to go further, can use 'Shadow of the Dragon' as a guide-book for their own quest into the mystic past.
In this controversial new book, Adrian Gilbert reveals the real reason why Charles married Diana and how, through her, the Royal Family was reconnected with the line of King Arthur, the guardians of the Holy Grail. It's a story which goes back to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Joseph of Arimathea, to the real King Arthur, ruler of Glamorgan and Pendragon of all Britain. Reinterpreting ancient sources in the light of recent discoveries, Gilbert takes the reader on a journey to Britain's mystical past: from Arthur to the fairy - tale wedding of Charles and Diana to the birth of Prince William on the summer solstice of 1982. He identifies the real Avalon, the location of the fabled Grail castle and the burial place of King Arthur. He also explains the significance of the Wars of the Roses, the wider role of Queen Elizabeth I, tracing other descendants of King Arthur and the early grail dynasty to the present time. He is able to show how not just Diana, the Princess of Wales, but also Sir Winston Churchill, were descended from the Holy Grail family of the Virgin Mary, revealing one of the greatest secrets of our time.
Join Adrian Gilbert on an exciting look at the Mayan Calendar and the many mysteries it holds. Discover why the year 2012 is predicted to be a year of exciting and extreme changes and the reasoning behind these changes. Learn why and how the ancient Maya, a people of exceptional astronomical skill and understanding, invented a calendar so accurate that it ends exactly when the Sun enters a specific portion of the Milky Way as it rises on the Winter Solstice, December 21, 2012, marking the shift to a New Age. Look at the possibility that we are, according to those ancient people, actually living through the “end times.” Gilbert explores theories in this well-written, informative book. Includes lots of color photos.
Written by the co-author of The Orion Mystery and The Mayan Prophecies, this book secret takes the reader through the past, revealing how secret knowledge was both preserved in the East in the form of monumental architecture and at the time of the Crusades, passed westwards to the fledgling states of Europe.
There exists a secret, hidden for thousands of years, that will forever change our understanding of the meaning and pupose of the most fascinating wonder of the Ancient World: the Pyramids of Egypt. What purpose did these massive structures, one of the largest construction projects ever undertaken, serve? Why were they scaattered across the desert in a seemingly random pattern? The mystery deepened when, in 1993, a secret door within the Great Pyramid was discovered--a door unopened for 5,500 years. Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert have uncovered the key to the plan that governed the construction of the pyramids. A dramatic combination of history and meticulous detective work, The Orion Mystery provides a stunning conclusion to one of the world's greatest mysteries.
This new approach to astrology explores the way that astrological ideas have influenced the art, philosophy, religion and culture of the west, revealing many startling discoveries, Gilbert uses astrology as a guide to the inner life, a way to the personal revelation that in ancient times was given the name "gnosis". With its many diagrams and accessible style, this book requires no previous knowledge of either astronomy or astrology.
Superior study by expert combines discussion of design and construction with detailed history of the evolution of instruments from earliest times to present. 75 illustrations, 25 musical examples, 16 fingering charts.
Substantially revised and enlarged, this new edition of the Dictionary of Pseudonyms includes more than 2,000 new entries, bringing the volume's total to approximately 13,000 assumed names, nicknames, stage names, and aliases. The introduction has been entirely rewritten, and many previous entries feature new accompanying details or quoted material. This volume also features a significantly greater number of cross-references than was included in previous editions. Arranged by pseudonym, the entries give the true name, vital dates, country of origin or settlement, and profession. Many entries also include the story behind the person's name change.
Kempe offers a radical revaluation of the life, work and reputation of Charles Eamer Kempe (1837-1907), one of the most remarkable and influential figures in late Victorian and Edwardian church art. Kempe's name became synonymous with a distinctive style of stained glass, furnishing and decoration deriving from late mediaeval and early Renaissance models. To this day, his hand can be seen in churches and cathedrals worldwide. Drawing on newly available archive material, Adrian Barlow evaluates Kempe's achievement in creating a Studio or School of artists and craftsmen who interpreted his designs and remained fiercely loyal to his aesthetic and religious ideals. He assesses his legacy and reputation today, as well as exploring his networks of patrons and influence, which stretched from the Royal Family and the Church of England hierarchy to the literary and artistic beau monde. These networks intersected at Kempe's stunning Sussex country house, Old Place, his 'Palace of Art'. Created to embody his ideals of beauty and history, it holds the key to understanding his contradictory personality, his public and private faces. This book will appeal to everyone interested in Victorian art in general and stained glass in particular. Detailed and wide-ranging, Kempe tells a compelling story.
The French Foreign Legion has built a reputation as one of the world’s most formidable and colorful military institutions. Established as a means of absorbing foreign troublemakers, the Legion spearheaded French colonialism in North Africa during the nineteenth century. Accepting volunteers from all parts of the world, the Legion acquired an aura of mystery and a less-than-enviable reputation for extreme brutality within its ranks. Voices of the Foreign Legion explores how the Legion selects its recruits, their native lands, and why these warriors seek a life full of hardship and danger. It analyzes the Legion’s brutal attitude toward discipline, questions why desertion has been a perennial problem, and assesses the Legion’s remarkable military achievements since its formation in the year 1831. This is the real story of the Legion, featuring firsthand accounts from the men who have fought in its ranks. Its scope ranges from the conquest of the colonies in Africa and the Far East through the horrors of the two world wars, to the bitter, but ultimately hopeless, battle to maintain France’s far-flung imperial possessions. The story is brought fully up-to-date with accounts and anecdotes from those contemporary foreign legionnaires who continue to fight for French interests around the globe. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
The story of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail is well known; less so is that of the coming of Christianity to Britain at around the time of the Roman invasion. It is generally assumed that both these legends revolve around town of Glastonbury, yet the paucity of evidence for this assumption has always been troubling to those who like their history to be founded on fact. In this extraordinary book, Adrian Gilbert reveals the location to be not just of the true 'Avalon' or 'Glastonbury' but of many other sites crucial to the Arthurian legend. He shows how the core teachings of Christianity were kept secret by a dynasty of Welsh kings and saints and later (after the Norman invasions) by their surviving descendants. For centuries this remnant of the Brittano-Welsh nobility, still living in 'Avalon', kept alive a hope: they prayed that one day a new Arthur, one with the holy blood of the family of Mary flowing in his veins, would sit once more on the throne of Britain. Extraordinary as it may seem, this hope may soon be realised - for through the late Diana, Princess of Wales, our own Prince William, whose middle name is indeed Arthur, is so descended.
Caesar (English, U. of New South Wales) argues against the centrality of Auden in the milieu of British poets during the 1930s and describes a heterogeneity of ideology, style, class origin, and life experience. He reviews the prevailing interpretations of the period, and considers a wide range of major and minor poets and the literary magazines they published in. Paper edition (unseen), $16.95. Distributed in the US by St. Martin's. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Sir Richard Fairey was one of the great aviation innovators of the twentieth century. His career as a plane maker stretched from the Edwardian period to the jet age - he lived long enough to see one of his aircraft be the first to break the 1000mph barrier; and at least one of his designs, the Swordfish, holds iconic status. A qualified engineer, party to the design, development, and construction of the Royal Navy's state-of-the-art sea planes, Sir Richard founded Fairey Aviation at the Admiralty's behest in 1915. His company survived post-war retrenchment to become one of Britain's largest aircraft manufacturers. The firm built a succession of front-line aircraft for the RAF and the Fleet Air Arm, including the iconic Swordfish. In addition, Fairey Aviation designed and built several cutting-edge experimental aircraft, including long-distance record-breakers between the wars and the stunningly beautiful Delta 2, which broke the world speed record on the eve of Sir Richard's death in 1956. Fairey also came to hold a privileged position in the British elite - courting politicians and policymakers. He became a figurehead of the British aviation industry and his successful running of the British Air Commission earned him a knighthood. A key player at a pivotal moment, Fairey's life tells us much about the exercise of power in early twentieth-century Britain and provides an insight into the nature of the British aviation manufacturing industry at its wartime peak and on the cusp of its twilight years.
A comprehensive reassessment of British musical films 1946-1972 including King's Rhapsody, Beat Girl, The Tommy Steele Story, Rock You Sinners, The Golden Disc, and Oliver! Acting as a sequel to Adrian Wright's Cheer Up! British Musical Films, 1929-1945 (Boydell, 2020), Melody in the Dark offers the first major reassessment of the British musical film from the end of Second World War up to the beginning of the 1970s. In the immediate post-war world, British studios sought to reflect fast-changing social attitudes as they struggled to create inventive diversions in an effort to rival American competition. Hollywood stars Errol Flynn, Vera-Ellen, Jayne Mansfield and Judy Garland were among those brought in to provide Hollywood glamour. Embedded in the British consciousness, the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan were represented in three productions. Studios occasionally attempted adaptations of British stage musicals, among them King's Rhapsody and Expresso Bongo, and sexploitation movies turned musical via Secrets of a Windmill Girl and Beat Girl. It was left to minor studios to acknowledge the impact of rock'n'roll on social change in three early films, The Tommy Steele Story, Rock You Sinners and the iconic The Golden Disc. Through the sixties, British cinema seemed intent on flooding the market with entertainments promoting pop singers and rock groups such as Cliff Richard, Billy Fury and The Beatles. Towards the end of the period, it aspired to more grandiose projects such as Oliver! and Oh! What a Lovely War.
The first English-language monograph on Il Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, this study explores the rise and fall of this postwar Italian artists' group as a representative instance of the tensions facing Italian painting during the transition out of two decades of Fascism and into the global divisions of the Cold War. Adrian Duran argues that the binary structures of the era - realism vs. abstraction, Communism vs. democracy, conformism vs. freedom - have monopolized the discourse surrounding the Fronte Nuovo and, with it, the historiography of Italian painting during this period, 1944-50. Beginning with the dialogues that framed the formation of the Fronte Nuovo, this book reconsiders artists' works, correspondence, critical writings, and manifestos. These are married to examinations of specific exhibitions, the most important of which are the group's 1947 inaugural exhibition and the 1948 and 1950 Venice Biennali. The critical responses to these exhibitions are reconsidered in light of their groundings in the heated political debates of the period. In total, these diverse sources reveal the vast divide between the internal discourse of the arts, generated by the participant artists and their works, and the surrounding politics of Cold War Italy.
This book analyses representations of death and dying in modern Western theatre from the late nineteenth century onward, examining how and why historically informed conceptions of mortality are dramatized and staged.
Combining a sophisticated theoretical analysis with detailed empirical case-studies, this book provides an original view of the challenges and threats to a stable peace order in Europe. The end of Cold War bipolarity has transformed Europe. Using structural realist theory, Adrian Hyde-Price analyzes the new security agenda confronting Europe in the twenty-first century. Europe, he argues, is not ‘primed for peace’ as mainstream thinking suggests, rather, it faces new security threats and the challenge of multipolarity. This critical and original volume looks at European security after the Iraq War, the failure of the EU constitution and the change of government in Germany. Reflecting on the inherently competitive and tragic nature of international politics, it concludes that realism provides the only firm foundations for an ethical foreign and security policy. European Security in the Twenty-First Century will appeal to students and scholars of international relations, European politics and security studies.
Originally published in 1937, this book contains a biography of Bartholomew of Exeter, one of the few bishops who supported Thomas Becket in his quarrel with Henry II. Some of his letters from the Pope, who used him as a judge delegate, are included in the volume, as is the Latin text of Bartholomew's Penetential, which deals with breaches of canon law and the penalties prescribed. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in English church history and the relations between the English monarchy and the Catholic Church.
In Fighting Churchill, Appeasing Hitler Adrian Phillips presents a radical new view of the British policy of appeasement in the late 1930s. No one doubts that appeasement failed, but Phillips shows that it caused active harm – even sabotaging Britain's preparations for war. He goes far further than previous historians in identifying the individuals responsible for a catalogue of miscalculations, deviousness and moral surrender that made the Second World War inevitable, and highlights the alternative policies that might have prevented it. Phillips outlines how Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his chief advisor, Sir Horace Wilson, formed a fatally inept two-man foreign-policy machine that was immune to any objective examination, criticism or assessment – ruthlessly manipulating the media to support appeasement while batting aside policies advocated by Winston Churchill, the most vocal opponent of appeasement. Churchill understood that Hitler was the implacable enemy of peace – and Britain – but Chamberlain and Wilson were terrified that any display of firmness would provoke him. For the first time, Phillips brings to light how Wilson and Churchill had been enemies since an incident early in their careers, and how, eventually, opposing Churchill became an end in itself. Featuring new revelations about the personalities involved and the shameful manipulations and betrayals that went into appeasement, including an attempt to buy Hitler off with a ruthless colonialist deal in Africa, Fighting Churchill, Appeasing Hitler shines a compelling and original light on one of the darkest hours in British diplomatic history.
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