Full of humour and emotion, "Family Aweigh" sees a town family, including three teenagers, flee London in 1976 (no GPS, smartphone, or Internet) to be thrust into an exciting new universe as they embark on a two-year voyage cruising the countries and countless islands of the Mediterranean aboard their beloved motor-yacht "Jernica." It's a book for you if you love travelling or sailing whether under sail or by motor. Join them coping with a priceless cast of characters, including cowboy helpers, baffling bureaucrats, pig-headed port officials, and nut cases galore. Join their many adventures, from precarious donkey rides, to hidden hilltop villages, to swapping contraband for lobsters in Turkey. From their first hair-raising attempts at boat-handling, see them develop into a skilled crew, battling dangerous seas or discovering concealed, idyllic anchorages. Watch each acquire specialist skills, performed often upside-down, for the daily slog maintaining a boat at sea; mum, varnisher-in-chief, also keeps the home going. Learn why grizzled Greek mariners in Piraeus line up for the help of 'the Mikro'-Jernica's fourteen-year-old engineer. Balancing schoolwork with travelling to remote ports and managing dangerous situations, the family recall their adventures with nostalgia and humour. And for those kind readers who have written to say how much they enjoyed the book but what happened in the remainder of our voyage - and how did the kids get on after their schooling at sea? There is now an Epilogue which, through a website will also enable you to see photographs of the crew, and episodes from the book to hopefully extend your enjoyment. And may I add it would be really great for us to get to know you, if you feel you'd like to post a review (it doesn't have to be long) on our Amazon Family Aweigh page. So, welcome aboard as you join us on our journey. Michael Holt
How partisan politics lead to the Civil War What brought about the Civil War? Leading historian Michael F. Holt convincingly offers a disturbingly contemporary answer: partisan politics. In this brilliant and succinct book, Holt distills a lifetime of scholarship to demonstrate that secession and war did not arise from two irreconcilable economies any more than from moral objections to slavery. Short-sighted politicians were to blame. Rarely looking beyond the next election, the two dominant political parties used the emotionally charged and largely chimerical issue of slavery's extension westward to pursue reelection and settle political scores, all the while inexorably dragging the nation towards disunion. Despite the majority opinion (held in both the North and South) that slavery could never flourish in the areas that sparked the most contention from 1845 to 1861-the Mexican Cession, Oregon, and Kansas-politicians in Washington, especially members of Congress, realized the partisan value of the issue and acted on short-term political calculations with minimal regard for sectional comity. War was the result. Including select speeches by Lincoln and others, The Fate of Their Country openly challenges us to rethink a seminal moment in America's history.
Here, Michael F. Holt gives us the only comprehensive history of the Whigs ever written. He offers a panoramic account of the tumultuous antebellum period, a time when a flurry of parties and larger-than-life politicians--Andrew Jackson, John C. Calhoun, Martin Van Buren, and Henry Clay--struggled for control as the U.S. inched towards secession. It was an era when Americans were passionately involved in politics, when local concerns drove national policy, and when momentous political events--like the Annexation of Texas and the Kansas-Nebraska Act--rocked the country. Amid this contentious political activity, the Whig Party continuously strove to unite North and South, emerging as the nation's last great hope to prevent secession.
Alan Ayckbourn is, after Shakespeare, Britain's most performed playwright and acknowledged as one of its most skilful directors. In 50 years he has written more than seventy plays and directed three times that number emerging as a formidable dramatist of international renown. Dismissed at first as a "mere boulevadier", he is now seen as an outstanding modern comic playwright, exploring themes of social and political importance with a bleak eye and a capacity to construct comedy out of the experience of the middle class audience. This book explores the range of his work which covers light comedy, farce, theatrical cartoon, musicals and plays for children. It defines the early influences and the developing themes, concentrating on Ayckbourn's technical skills and his challenges to Aristotelian unities. It traces the playwright's journey from observer of middle class dilemmas through moral and ethical commentator, and on to his concentration on fantasist behaviour and the nature of long term relationsh
The genial but troubled New Englander whose single-minded partisan loyalties inflamed the nation's simmering battle over slavery Charming and handsome, Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire was drafted to break the deadlock of the 1852 Democratic convention. Though he seized the White House in a landslide against the imploding Whig Party, he proved a dismal failure in office. Michael F. Holt, a leading historian of nineteenth-century partisan politics, argues that in the wake of the Whig collapse, Pierce was consumed by an obsessive drive to unify his splintering party rather than the roiling country. He soon began to overreach. Word leaked that Pierce wanted Spain to sell the slave-owning island of Cuba to the United States, rousing sectional divisions. Then he supported repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which limited the expansion of slavery in the west. Violence broke out, and "Bleeding Kansas" spurred the formation of the Republican Party. By the end of his term, Pierce's beloved party had ruptured, and he lost the nomination to James Buchanan. In this incisive account, Holt shows how a flawed leader, so dedicated to his party and ill-suited for the presidency, hastened the approach of the Civil War.
This solid preparatory guide will make certain Master Electrican's Exam-takers are ready for all the complicated and technical rules put forth in the test. Based on the NEC, the guide illuminates everything from electrical fundamentals, formulas, and circuits through motors, transformers, and generators, all the way to such advanced areas as outlet and junction boxes and conduit body, motor, voltage drop, and residential load calculations. Includes over 2,400 practice questions. 100 illustrations.
The reader's decisions will determine whether Doctor Who can stop Garth Hadeez, the Golons Overlord, from creating a fake planet which will contain a black hole capable of engulfing the solar system.
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