You will be gripped and inspired by this exciting story–I couldn’t put it down." –Lyndal Roper, author of Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet On the 500th anniversary of the German Peasant Wars, a brilliant portrait of Thomas Munzter: radical millenarian preacher, revolutionary and iconoclast ‘The princes are nothing but tyrants who flay the people; they fritter away our blood and sweat on their pomp and whoring and knavery.’ These were the words of Thomas Müntzer at the head of the massed ranks of a peasant army in the year 1525. Ranged against him were the might of the princes of the German Nation. How did Müntzer, the son of a coin maker from central Germany, rise in just a few short years to become one of the most feared revolutionaries in early modern Europe? In this brilliant work of historical excavation, Andrew Drummond charts the life and times of the man Martin Luther denounced as a ‘Ravening Wolf’ and ‘False Prophet’. Drummond shows us Müntzer as a human being. Far from the bloodthirsty devil of legend, he was a man of considerable learning and principle, deeply sympathetic to the misery of the peasantry and the poor. In his short life – he was beheaded at thirty-five – Müntzer promised to fundamentally upend German society. Seeking to save Müntzer from the condescension of history, Drummond guides us through the religious and political disputes of the Reformation, placing his life and thought in the context of those turbulent years. The result is a portrait of an often contradictory but always radical figure, one who continues to inspire movements of the poor across the globe.
Published in 1790, Maurice Benyovszky’s posthumous memoir was an instant sensation. A tale of exploration and adventure beginning with his daring escape from a Siberian prison and ending with his coronation as King of Madagascar, it was translated into several languages and adapted for the theatre and opera. This book explores the veracity of this memoir and, more broadly, the challenges faced by the explorers of the age and the brutality of colonisation. The self-styled Hungarian Baron Maurice Auguste Aladar Benyovszky, Counsellor to the Duke of Saxony and Colonel in the service of the Queen of Hungary, was in fact only confirmed to have been an officer in a regiment of the Polish Confederation of Bar. While he did escape from Russian captors and subsequently travel to Japan, Formosa, China and Madagascar, many of his exploits were wildly exaggerated or simply invented. Andrew Drummond reveals an alternative picture of events by looking at statements from Benyovszky’s travelling companions and sceptical officials as well as contemporary documents from the places he claimed to have visited, untangling the truth behind his stories and examining what these stories can nonetheless tell us about the era in which Benyovszky lived. Witty and engagingly written, this book is fascinating reading for anyone interested in eighteenth-century colonial history and the story of early European and Russian explorers.
In the 1890s, the people of north-west Scotland grew tired of Government Commissions sent to consider a railway to Ullapool. Despite rock-solid arguments in favour of such a railway, neither government nor the big railway companies lifted a finger to build one. Against the recommendations of its own advisers, the Scottish Office dismissed the project as 'a quite impossible proposal'. In 1918, history repeated itself with another Commission and another failure to build the railway. 'Drivel' is how one local man described the official government inquiry reports. Few disagreed. This book tells the whole sorry tale of the attempt to improve transportation in the north-west Highlands and the resulting government inquiries, set against the region's economic and social problems and civil unrest in the crofting communities. Stories, facts and figures have been unearthed from the archives of government departments and railway companies, from local people's letters and petitions, from contemporary newspapers and from the plans prepared for the hoped-for railways. Other unbuilt railways to the north-west coast are also described. But this story is not just about planned railways that were never built. It is about the frustrations of the people of the Highlands in the face of government incompetence, railway-company obstructionism, local rivalries and the struggle against the historical injustice of land-ownership.
Novgorod the Great - City of a Thousand Saints, August 1833. A young widow and a prosperous merchant encounter each other by chance in an inn kept by a man whose antipathy to all guests is matched only by his violent loathing of poets. But during a night spent in each other's company, filled with dawning hope, revelation, unfortunate accidents and pickled eggs, several remarkable stories unfold. The story of John Cochrane, pedestrian traveller extraordinaire, and deceased husband of the young widow Ksenia; of his infamous father, who spent his life defrauding governments and upsetting Napoleon; of Ksenia Loginova's perilous 6,000 mile journey across Siberia and the unwelcome attentions of a troubadour; of the merchant Horatio who reflects on love, slavery and arithmetic. Among other matters discussed at length in the small hours of the night are carnivorous Bolivian elephants, the questionable motives of travellers, and the impatience of Chernobog, Master of the Infernal Darkness...
Edward Irving (1792-1834) was a Scottish clergyman and played a significant role in founding the Catholic Apostolic Church. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and became a tutor and master of an academy before his receiving an appointment in the Church of Scotland. But he became most well-known for his involvement with prophecy, millenarianism, and speaking in tongues. These issues led to his being removed from the Church of Scotland on the charge of heresy. This volume provides an engaging examination of Irving, both in biographical detail and the controversies that surrounded him.
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