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showing 328 library results for 'drawing'

Stitching the world : embroidered maps and women's geographical education /Judith A. Tyner. From the late eighteenth century until about 1840, schoolgirls in the British Isles and the United States created embroidered map samplers and even silk globes. Hundreds of British maps were made and although American examples are more rare, they form a significant collection of artefacts. Descriptions of these samplers stated that they were designed to teach needlework and geography. The focus of this book is not on stitches and techniques used in 'drafting' the maps, but rather why they were developed, how they diffused from the British Isles to the United States, and why they were made for such a brief time. There has been little serious study of these maps by cartographers and, moreover, historians of cartography have largely neglected the role of women in mapping. Children's maps have not been studied, although they might have much to offer about geographical teaching and perceptions of a period, and map samplers have been dismissed because they are the work of schoolgirls. Needlework historians, likewise, have not done in depth studies of map samplers until recently. Stitching the World is an interdisciplinary work drawing on cartography, needlework, and material culture. This book for the first time provides a critical analysis of these artefacts, showing that they offer significant insights into both eighteenth- and nineteenth-century geographic thought and cartography in the USA and the UK and into the development of female education. [2015] • BOOK • 1 copy available. 746.44/0433
Black May "This book is the story of the month in the spring of 1943, 'Black May' as the Germans called it, when the Allies finally and decisively gained the upper hand in the Battle of the Atlantic and it became clear that the submarine threat would be defeated. In the course of that month the Allies, confronted with the largest submarine force yet sent out into the Atlantic, sunk 41 U-boats and damaged another 37 and Admiral Doenitz was forced to withdraw the surviving boats from the fray. Most significant of all, one major convoy, ONS.5, which was targeted by several wolfpacks in rapid succession and should, in the light of past experience, have suffered severe losses, survived largely unscathed while the attacking wolfpacks were relentlessly hunted down by the escorting ships and aircraft. Michael Gannon describes the hundreds of separate engagements that took place in the course of the month in vivid detail, drawing upon archive records on both sides of the Atlantic as well as the personal recollections of those involved on both sides. [...] He also reproduces the transcripts of secretly recorded conversations between captured U-boat crewmen, which provide a fascinating insight into their attitudes and morale.[...]The courage and determination of the men who fought was crucial but the Allied victory was also the result of improvements in stategy, tactics and technology, including the introduction of centimetric radar and radio-direction finding gear, and all of these factors are examined and analysed here."--Provided by the publisher. 1998 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.827(43)"1943"
Condemned : the transported men, women and children who built Britain's empire /Graham Seal. "A tremendously powerful account, told through individual stories, of how forced migration was fundamental to the British empire. The cruel system of transportation has a long history. In the early 1600s, Elizabeth Wynn was imprisoned for robbery, marked as colonialist property and shipped overseas. In the eighteenth century, petty thieves like Charlotte Badger were sent to outposts in Australia and America and there put to work. Even as recently as the 1940s, 'superfluous' or unwanted children such as four-year-old Marcelle O'Brien were sent to institutions in Australia, where they were vulnerable to abuse. Drawing on first-hand accoutns, letters and official documents, Graham Seal uncovers the traumatic struggles of individuals shipped around the empire. He shows how the earliest large-scale kidnapping and transportation of children to the American colonies was quickly bolstered with shipments of the poor, criminal and rebellious to different continents. From Asia to Africa, this global trade in forced labour allowed Britain to build its colonies while turning a considerable profit. Over the course of 400 years, Britain transported over 376,000 unwanted citizens beyond its shores. Revelatory and often moving, Condemned brings to light the true extent of this brutal element in the history of the British empire."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 364.6/80941
Broadcasting empire : the BBC and the British world, 1922-1970 /Simon J. Potter. Broadcasting was born just as the British empire reached its greatest territorial extent, and matured while that empire began to unravel. Radio and television offered contemporaries the beguiling prospect that new technologies of mass communication might compensate for British imperial decline. In Broadcasting Empire, Simon J. Potter shows how, from the 1920s, the BBC used broadcasting to unite audiences at home with the British settler diaspora in Canada, Australia, NewZealand, and South Africa. High culture, royal ceremonial, sport, and even comedy were harnessed to this end, particularly on the BBC Empire Service, the predecessor of today's World Service. Belatedly, during the 1950s, the BBC also began to consider the role of broadcasting in Africa and Asia, as a means toencourage 'development' and to combat resistance to continued colonial rule. However, during the 1960s, as decolonization entered its final, accelerated phase, the BBC staged its own imperial retreat.This is the first full-length, scholarly study to examine both the home and overseas aspects of the BBC's imperial mission. Drawing on new archival evidence, it demonstrates how the BBC's domestic and imperial roles, while seemingly distinct, in fact exerted a powerful influence over one another. Broadcasting Empire makes an important contribution to our understanding of the transnational history of broadcasting, emphasising geopolitical rivalries and tensions between British andAmerican attempts to exert influence on the world's radio and television systems. 2012. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 941-44:654.19
Outlaw Ocean : crime and survival in the last untamed frontier /Ian Urbina "The Outlaw Ocean is a riveting, adrenalin-fuelled tour of a vast, lawless and rampantly criminal world that few have ever seen: the high seas. There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to the unbridled extremes of human behaviour and activity. Traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortion-providers, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways: drawing on five years of perilous and intrepid reporting, often hundreds of miles from shore, Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world and their risk-fraught lives. Through their stories of astonishing courage and brutality, survival and tragedy, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil and shipping industries, and on which the world's economies rely. Both a gripping adventure story and a stunning exposâe, this unique work of reportage brings fully into view for the first time the disturbing reality of a floating world that connects us all, a place where anyone can do anything because no one is watching."--Provided by the publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 343.3/.7
The Great Siege of Malta : the epic battle between the Ottoman Empire and the Knights of St. John /Bruce Ware Allen. "In the spring of 1565, a massive fleet of Ottoman ships descended on Malta, a small island centrally located between North Africa and Sicily, home and headquarters of the crusading Knights of St. John and their charismatic Grand Master, Jean de Valette. The Knights had been expelled from Rhodes by the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, and now stood as the last bastion against a Muslim invasion of Sicily, southern Italy, and beyond. The siege force of Turks, Arabs, and Barbary corsairs from across the Muslim world outnumbered the defenders of Malta many times over, and its arrival began a long hot summer of bloody combat, often hand to hand, embroiling knights and mercenaries, civilians and slaves, in a desperate struggle for this pivotal point in the Mediterranean. Bruce Ware Allen's The Great Siege of Malta describes the siege's geopolitical context, explains its strategies and tactics, and reveals how the all-too-human personalities of both Muslim and Christian leaders shaped the course of events. The siege of Malta was the Ottoman empire's high-water mark in the war between the Christian West and the Muslim East for control of the Mediterranean. Drawing on copious research and new source material, Allen stirringly recreates the two factions' heroism and chivalry, while simultaneously tracing the barbarism, severity, and indifference to suffering of sixteenth-century warfare. The Great Siege of Malta is a fresh, vivid retelling of one of the most famous battles of the early modern world - a battle whose echoes are still felt today." [2015]. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 945.8/502
Nowherelands : an atlas of vanished countries, 1840-1975 /Bjorn Berge ; translated ... by Lucy Moffatt. "A multitude of countries that once existed have since been erased from the map. Varying vastly in size and shape, location and longevity, the fifty 'nowherelands' in this book are united by one fact: all of them endured long enough to issue their own stamps. Some of their names, such as Biafra or New Brunswick, will be relatively familiar. Others, such as Labuan, Tannu Tuva, and Inini, are far less recognizable. But all of these lost nations have stories to tell, whether they were as short-lived as Eastern Karelia, which lasted only a few weeks during the Soviet-Finnish War of 1922, or as long-lasting as the Orange Free State, a Boer Republic that celebrated fifty years as an independent state in the late 1800s. Their broad spectrum reflects the entire history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with its ideologies, imperialism, waves of immigration, and conflicts both major and minor. The motifs and symbols chosen for stamps have always served as a form of national self-presentation, an expression of the aims and ambitions of the ruling authorities. Drawing on fiction and eye-witness accounts as well as historical sources, Bjorn Berge's witty text casts an unconventional eye on these lesser-known nations. Nowherelands is a different kind of history book that will intrigue anyone keen to understand what makes a nation a nation."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 912.44
Empire Javelin, D-Day assault ship : the British vessel that landed the US 116th infantry on Omaha Beach /Philip Kay-Bujak. "Empire Javelin an American-built LSI (Landing Ship, Infantry) in Royal Navy service, played an important role on D-Day. She carried A Company 116th RCT (the famous 'Bedford' Boys') across the Channel and her landing craft put them ashore on Dog Green sector as part of the initial assault or 'suicide wave', onto Omaha beach. In telling her story, Philip Kay-Bujak does justice to the contribution of the Royal Navy at Omaha Beach, which has been underappreciated in the past (when directing Saving Private Ryan, Stephen Spielberg notoriously said there was no British involvement). Drawing heavily on first-hand accounts, the author covers the actions of the ship herself and of the landing craft launched from her in great detail. One third of her landing craft were lost in the first wave alone. He also reveals Empire Javelin's earlier life, from design and construction, through launch and training. Similarly, he relates her service after that fateful day in June 1944, when she continued to ferry troops across the Channel for several months. The events surrounding her sinking in December 1944, either by U-boat or a mine, while laden with troops, are also fully examined. The author's skilful narrative is supported by archive photos, the whole forming a fitting testament to the contribution of Empire Javelin and ships like her, which, though less glamorous than battleships and destroyers, played a vital role in Operation Overlord and the liberation of Europe."--Provided by the publisher.' 2024. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.5421421