Justin Pollard

"Wonders of the Ancient World" describes the most extraordinary feats of human engineering and design from across the globe, created between the dawn of human civilization and the onset of the Dark Ages. Author Justin Pollard looks at the problems that the ancients solved to build each wonder and introduces us to the travellers, both ancient and modern, who saw and rediscovered each site.

Todos los personajes, lugares y referencias históricas se recogen en este hermoso volumen lleno de fotografías inéditas del rodaje, así como comentarios de los actores y el equipo de producción que h

War brings out the very best and worst in people although, frankly, its usually the latter. But for all our thousands of years of practice at this most dangerous art there is precious little evidence that were either outgrowing it or getting any good at it. It is an occupation filled with heroism, genius, hubris, idiocy and blind panic all bought on at least in part by large measures of astonishingly good and bad luck - and theyre all here in Charge! This is not a book filled with battle diagrams swarming with arrows or 100,000 word descriptions of the tactical basis for the Pastry War. It is a book about the smaller tragedies and triumphs that actually go to make up the big picture - toilets that sink U-boats, unsporting attacks on Christmas day, armies that stop for tea, bombs on renegade balloons, drunk generals, blind kings, blind drunk generals, circular warships, and all the joy and misery that such things bring with them. And an interesting bit about the Pastry War.

"The Story of Archaeology" tells the thrilling and fascinating tale of modern archaeology from its earliest beginnings to the present through 50 chronologically arranged profiles of iconic excavations - from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Death Pit of Ur, from Machu Picchu to the Mary Rose, and from Hoxne to Hallstatt. Some of these are discoveries of the swashbuckling type - lost tombs filled with precious artefacts - but others consist of bricks and pieces of flint and pottery which have, in the story they tell, proved to be yet rarer and more valuable. Broken pots and test-tubes of ancient pollen can, after all, be just as much ''treasure'' as the mask of Tutankhamun, for they all tell a part of the story that helps us to understand who we are and how we got here. Each site profile is accompanied by boxed features shedding light on the archaeological techniques used then and now, describing the cultures that have been discovered and telling the personal stories of the people who discovered them. Helpful locator maps and informative timelines are included for every site.

Alfred is the only English king ever to be called 'Great'. It was not a title given by political supporters, not the sycophantic gift of an official biographer, nor a self-styled title. It was the gift of history.Justin Pollard's enthralling, authoritative account befits Alfred - a soldier, a scholar and statesman like no other in English history. His rule spanned troubled times. His shores were under constant threat from Viking marauders and he faced turmoil at home.Soon after he began his rule a conspiracy erupted and he was hounded out of his kingdom into solitary exile in forests and fens. But his ambition was not felled by adversity. Alone in this damp, dangerous, half-world of bogs and quicksand Alfred looked within and found the motivation to create a new type of nation.Drawing on the latest historical, textual and archaeological research Justin Pollard radically reassesses the key moments in Alfred's life. He offers a new interpretation of what caused this most remarkable king to begin the formation of England and how it coloured the subsequent history of the Western World down to the present day.

Did you give school history lessons your undivided attention? Even if you did, youre probably none the wiser as to how exactly Henry II of France came to have a two-foot splinter in his head or why Alexandra of Bavaria believed she had swallowed a piano. Or where terms like bunkum, maverick, John Bull and taking the mickey come from; or how the Tsarina of Russia once saved a life with a comma; or why Robert Pate hit Queen Victoria on the head with a walking stick. For some unknown reason the most interesting bits of history are kept out of lessons and away from syllabuses. Relegated to historys footnotes, they lie buried beneath the dense text like a few golden nuggets in a mountain of granite. Now The Interesting Bits rights this wrong; it is a veritable treasure trove of those surprising, eccentric, chaotic, baffling asides that dont fit neatly into historys official narrative. They are historys little-known treasures the gems that generations of teachers have excised from lessons on the grounds that they might make history too much like, well, fun.

The history of science is often seen as a story of advancement but nothing could be further from the truth. Science, it is true, has progressed, but rarely in the direction intended and seldom for the reasons given. This has a lot to do with the people responsible. From the strange to the eccentric, meet Thales, credited as the father of science, whose only real claim to fame is that he often fell into ditches, discover how Archimedes never said Eureka and hated baths anyway and how the most lucrative ancient Greek invention was not democracy but the slot machine. Justin Pollard also fills us in on Issac Newton, who thought gravity was created by the Holy Spirit, how eleven people claimed to have invented the steam engine and why the first website was twelve foot across and made of wood.

Some of our most intriguing history is missing. Perhaps there has been a conspiracy, a cover-up? Or maybe some stories have been lost, forgotten or were just too embarrassing to talk about at the time? But now they are back, revealed in all their glory: secret passages, events, societies, loves, identities and even dark secrets of the grave. After much sleuthing, Justin Pollard takes us into undisclosed historical waters to discover why the city of Burlington isnt on the map; how Agent Pickle saved the lost treasure of Bonnie Prince Charlie; what Sir Thomas Overbury knew in 1613 that got him murdered with a poisoned enema and how Virginia Woolf sweet-talked her way aboard HMS Dreadnought dressed as Abyssinian Prince. Secret Britain also reveals the tragic love story behind the Rolls Royce mascot; how agent Garbo managed to get an MBE and an Iron Cross; the sinister properties of the Hand of Glory; the lost smuggling ship Peggy; the Mystery Runner of Nos Galan; the extraordinary history of the Fairy Flag of Dunvegan; Londons only Nazi war memorial and the secrets of the WWII Monopoly board.