In 1897, William Laird Clowes gave up his journalistic career to focus on naval history, spending the next six years compiling his best-known work, The Royal Navy, A History from the Earliest Times to 1900. This comprehensive history was well received at the time and remains a standard reference text and in print. It was originally intended to be in five volumes but became seven volumes by the time he finished. This Chronicon edition is in fourteen volumes. The series is a faithful version of his work as originally published, the only significant changes being the clarification and expansion of his citations.

During the last years of his life, he was also a contributor to Traill and Mann s six-volume series Social England and author of Four Modern Naval Campaigns (1902). Much of his research into naval history was carried out abroad, especially in Davos, Switzerland, due to repeated bouts of ill health. For his services to journalism and naval history, he was knighted in the 1902 Coronation Honours, receiving the accolade from King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on 24 October that year. He was further given a civil list pension of 150, invited to join the Institute of Naval Architects and the Royal United Service Institution and presented with the gold medal of the United States Naval Institute. He also became a Fellow of King s College London. He died in August 1905 at his home in St Leonards, East Sussex.

Percy F. Martin's 1914 study is a comprehensive narrative of the French Intervention in Mexico and the short, tragic reign of Emperor Maximilian I, placed against the backdrop of Mexico s long struggle for political stability. Martin opens by describing the chaotic first decades of the Mexican Republic, emphasizing how internal divisions, regional strongmen, and repeated civil conflicts created a political vacuum that foreign powers especially France exploited. He frames the intervention as the culmination of decades of instability that disappointed liberal sympathizers abroad who had hoped Mexico would flourish after independence. The book then traces the French invasion and its motives. Martin details Napoleon III s ambitions: expanding French influence, securing repayment of debts, and establishing a Latin Catholic monarchy as a counterweight to the United States. His book concludes with the execution of Maximilian on a hill in Queretaro by firing squad.

Percy Falcke Martin, 1861-1941, a member of the Royal Geographical Society was an English writer and journalist active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, best known for his detailed economic, political, and travel studies of Latin America, Mexico, Egypt, and other regions. His books were often used as reference works for understanding national industries, foreign investment, and political conditions during a period of rapid modernization. While biographical details about his personal life are scarce, his publications show a clear pattern: he specialized in geopolitical reportage, economic surveys, and on‑the‑ground travel accounts of countries undergoing major transitions.

This is the first volume of the projected six-volume Chronicon Edition of W. Carew Hazlitt's history of the Venetian Republic, based on the fourth edition (two volumes) published in London by Adam and Charles Black in 1915. Hazlitt s work begins with the Republic s foundation in A.D. 409 as a collection of villages on the marshy islands between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers that were intended to serve as a temporary refuge for Roman citizens fleeing the devastating incursions of the northern barbarians into the Roman Empire of the West. The set concludes with the Republic s demise in the year 1797 at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume One of this Chronicon Edition chronicles the Republic s formation and its slow rise to supreme maritime power in the Mediterranean. It ends in the year 1205 when Venice employs its superb navy to assist the treacherous western Crusaders in the conquest of Constantinople, thus depriving the titular Roman Empire of the East of its magnificent ancient capital for a period of 57 years.

William Carew Hazlitt (1834 1913), known professionally as W. Carew Hazlitt, was an English lawyer, bibliographer, editor and writer. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors School and was called to the bar of the Inner Temple in 1861.

This is a history of the state founded in Medina by Muhammad the Prophet in the year A.D. 622. By the 9th century, the small theocratic state that became known as the Caliphate of Islam had expanded to include the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Palestine, Armenia, Iraq, Iran, North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula.

The author Al Imam Abu al Abbas Ahmad ibn Jabir al Baladhuri was a 9th century A.D. Persian historian, one of the most eminent historians of the age. He lived primarily in Baghdad and was a prominent scholar at the courts of the Abbasid Caliphs, al Mutawakkil Ala Ilah, who reigned from 847 to 861, and al Mustain bi Ilah, who reigned from 862 to 866. He died in 892, poisoned by a supposed memory enhancing drug called baladhur, which became the epithet by which he is best known. His most famous work is this, Kitab Futuh al Buldan, translated from Arabic into English and published in 1916 as The Origins of the Islamic State.

The translator is Philip Khuri Hitti (1886-1978), a Lebanese American professor and scholar at Princeton and Harvard Universities.

Cyril Robinson s history reviews the transformation of the Roman state from a minor kingdom in a remote part of the world into the most powerful empire of ancient times and the center of Western civilization. This process was the great achievement, for better or worse, of the republic which replaced the primitive Kingdom of Rome and created the machinery of the Roman Empire. It saw the expansion of the Roman character from that of the sturdy, disciplined, pragmatic, brutal, narrow-minded, agricultural, oligarchic nation that successfully passed its trial-by-fire during the savage war against Hannibal. It emerged from that war as a world power open to the influences of other cultures, most notably that of the Hellenistic civilization that dominated the eastern Mediterranean. The players in this high drama were such towering personalities as Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, Cleopatra, and Augustus, the founder of the new imperial state that formed Western civilization.

This is full and accurate edition of Ollivier s The Franco-Prussian War and Its Hidden Causes as translated from the French by George Burnham Ives. However, the translator s numerous informative but cumbersome insertions have been rearranged for clarity (the translator s additions to the text appear in brackets). The Index has been replaced by a new General index. An Index of Citations has also been added to help the reader identify the various source materials.

Emile Ollivier (1825 to 1913) was a French statesman in the service of the Emperor Napoleon III as nominal premier from January 2nd, 1870 to August 10, 1870, when his ministry fell at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War

This combat narrative was published by the Office of Naval Intelligence in early 1943 while the Pacific War was still raging. It was classified confidential at the time which meant that secret and top secret material could not be included. A result is that the critical fact that the Japanese naval code had been broken is not mentioned. It was this fact, of course, that enabled the U.S. Navy to ambush the Japanese fleet headed toward Midway Island and turned the entire course of the war in favor of the United States.

This publication is a reprint of the original intelligence document published just six months after the battle for the use of U.S. Naval officers.

First published in 1920 by Charles Winthrop Sawyer, Firearms in American History - Our Rifles is an invaluable reference for the various types of rifles used in America prior to 1920. It contains historical information concerning the manufacture and use of rifles, as well as detailed technical data complete with photographs of specific types. It includes extensive information about rifles used by American and foreign troops who participated in America s wars starting with the War of 1812 up to World War I, as well as those used by and against indigenous Americans. Also included are guns used for hunting, recreation, and self-defense. Sawyer. a prolific writer and recognized authority on guns of all types, was born in 1868 and the reader will soon notice that he is very much a product of his times. This is not a photo copy or OCR scan of the original work.

In 1921, when this book was first published, the city of Butte, Montana had become the richest and most notorious mining camp in the world. Planted amidst the remote splendor of the Rocky Mountains on top of the greatest deposit of metal wealth ever discovered, it required enormous infusions of capital and a vast army of laborers to extract that wealth from nature s deep granite vaults. According to the author, at least 52 nationalities were represented in the workforce imported by the eastern capitalists to make it all possible, and these miners and merchants brought with them many of their own diverse traditions, creating a cultural amalgamation like no other. Butte, rich beyond imagination, soon became a magnet for every kind of dreamer, striver, builder, reformer, schemer, opportunist, exploiter, corruptor, prostitute, thief, and charlatan known to mankind. It became a stage for triumph and disaster where anything could happen, a city of dreams fulfilled, and dreams broken. The world had never seen anything like it. The author, George Wesley Davis, had experienced it all. He had come to Butte as a young man from Iowaville, Iowa to deliver a herd of beef cattle and cases of whiskey to the ravenous city. He stayed on to become a newspaper reporter and prominent businessman with a deep affection for his adopted city, both for its virtues and its faults. In these Sketches, he describes not the well-documented stories of the ruthless mining companies, subservient courts, and corrupt politics. Instead, he provides a first-hand account of day-to-day life in a truly unique city at a time when the ephemeral nature of Butte s wealth was just beginning to become apparent. He writes about miners, cowboys, vigilantes, farmers, hack drivers, whores, swells, millionaires, merchants, paupers, opium fiends, domestic architecture, the great influenza pandemic of 1918, and the imposition of Prohibition. At the end, he laments the exodus of the old-money class, a circumstance that gave the first hint that all that wealth was destined to go elsewhere and the people of Butte, who had created it at great cost to their own well-being, would eventually be left with almost nothing but a vast hole in the ground filled with toxic waste. Though an educated, well-traveled, and broad-minded businessman, Davis was certainly a product of his times, as is readily evident from his writing style. It is a style worth noting, however, as it gives us a deeper picture of the times in which he lived.

This history of the British Grand Fleet from 1914 to 1916 was written by its commander, Admiral John Rushworth Jellicoe. It is a detailed analysis of the Royal Navy s strategic, tactical, and logistical problems during the first two years of the First World War from the point-of-view of a professional naval officer at the highest level. It details the operations of the British Grand Fleet which was assigned the responsibility of defending the stormy North Sea against the Imperial German Navy. Admiral Jellicoe was forced to cope with many unprecedented changes in the conduct of naval warfare brought about by such things as the submarine, torpedoes, long-range gunnery, aircraft, and airships, all of which demanded the development of entirely new tactics and strategies. The challenge to Admiral Jellicoe was huge, as these new technologies were being aggressively developed by the Germans, giving them the most technologically advanced navy in the world at that time. Substantial destruction of the Grand Fleet at their hands would have doomed Britain to catastrophic defeat.

Admiral Jellicoe s narrative begins with the outbreak of war in 1914 when he was given command of the Grand Fleet, Britain s largest and most vital fleet, culminating with its stupendous encounter in 1916 with the German High Sea Fleet off Jutland in the greatest sea battle yet fought, after which he was promoted to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord.

This history of the Royal Navy from 1917 to 1918 was written by its First Sea Lord, Admiral John Rushworth Jellicoe. It is a detailed analysis of the Royal Navy s strategic, tactical, and logistical problems during the final two years of the First World War from the point-of-view of a professional naval officer at the highest level of the Admiralty. It follows his previous history of the operations of the British Grand Fleet which he commanded from 1914 to 1916.

The crisis of the Naval war was also the greatest crisis Britain had yet to face, as the German Imperial Navy began to keep its High Sea Fleet mostly in port after the Battle of Jutland, and stepped up its extremely effective U-boat campaign against Allied shipping in the Atlantic and elsewhere. Admiral Jellicoe s narrative begins when he was promoted to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord. He describes the organization, technology, strategy and tactics adopted by the Admiralty as it struggled with the realities of unrestricted submarine warfare such as had never before been conducted or imagined. It was the advent of modern naval warfare and Admiral Jellico was there.

Included in this edition are the appendices, charts, diagrams, and photographs left out of many other reprints of the original edition

This work, originally published in 1927, is a comprehensive and factual summary and analysis of the historical, mythological, anthropological, scientific and archaeological evidence, available at the time it was written, concerning Atlantis. Its starting point is the work of Plato who provides a very detailed account of Atlantis and who made it very clear that he was not writing fiction. Though never accepted by the mainstream scholars, who generally reject the idea that Atlantis ever existed outside mythology, it is a serious work of scholarship, not a fanciful journey into the occult.

Some of Lewis Spence s specific conclusions do not stand up under scrutiny but he is generally successful in making a strong case for the former reality of Atlantis as a rich and powerful state situated in the present Atlantic Ocean. For example, he is unaware of the theory of drifting tectonic plates which had not yet been accepted by geological science. His statement that Atlantis had no knowledge of metals, contradicts most of the written evidence he cites and is based entirely on the fact that the primitive Azilian culture in Europe did not use metal. He seems to believe that the spread of culture can only occur when accompanied by migration.

This Chronicon Books edition is a full and faithful transcription of Lewis Spence s original book.

The King James Version of the Holy Bible: In five paper back or electronic volumes.

This is an accurate and complete transcription in five volumes of the most important English language version of the Christian Bible. This Chronicon Books edition is designed for easier reading and handling than any single-volume edition could possibly be. It uses clear and modern fonts and formatting, while retaining the original language that made it a masterpiece of English literature and an endless source of inspiration for many of the world s greatest authors.

In 1604 King James I of England convened the Hampton Court Conference and gave the translators instructions to produce a work that would conform to the ecclesiology of the Church of England. The original edition was printed by the King s printer, Robert Barker and was published in 1611. Over forty scholars working in six committees performed the translations from Hebrew and Aramaic texts for the Old Testament, and from Greek texts for the New Testament. The committees were as follows:

First Westminster Company: from Genesis to Second Kings.

First Cambridge Company: from First Chronicles to the Song of Solomon.

First Oxford Company: from Isaiah to Malachi.

Second Oxford Company: the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and Revelation.

Second Westminster Company: the Epistles.

Second Cambridge Company: the Apocrypha (not included in later editions or in this edition).

The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army is a detailed analysis of the foreign auxiliary troops which fought along side the legions and made up more than half of imperial Rome s immense professional military organization. The author, George Leonard Cheesman concentrates on the period roughly from the time of Augustus to Marcus Aurelius when Rome was at the peak of her power.

G. L. Cheesman (1884-1915) was a historian and Fellow of New College, Oxford. Serving as a Lieutenant in the First World War, he was killed at Gallipoli. His papers are now in the Bodleian Library.

First published in 1910 by Charles Winthrop Sawyer, Firearms in American History - 1600 to 1800 is an invaluable reference for the various types of firearms used in America prior to 1800. It contains historical information concerning the manufacture and use of firearms, as well as detailed technical data complete with photographs of specific types. It includes extensive information about military and sporting arms used by the American, French, British, and German troops who participated in the American Revolution, as well as those used against the indigenous Americans prior to and after that war. Also included are guns used for hunting and self-defense.

For this book, so far as its purpose is concerned, perhaps no apology is needed. It aims at constructing a history, at once broad and detailed, of the Saracen conquest of Egypt. No such history has yet been written, although scattered essays on the subject may be found from Gibbon onwards brief sketches or chapters in some wider treatise upon the Roman or the Arab empire. Indeed, the fact that no serious and minute study upon the conquest exists in any language is not a little remarkable; but it has been mainly due to two causes the scantiness of the material accessible to ordinary students, and the total want of agreement among the authorities, familiar or unfamiliar, eastern or western.

Wilhelm Oechsli (1851 - 1919) was a Swiss historian. He studied theology and history at Berlin and Zurich under Theodor Mommsen among others. In 1887 he took up the new chair of Swiss history at the Zurich Polytechnikum. From 1893 to 1919 he was professor of history at the University of Z rich. He tried to popularize critical historiography, challenging the legendary traditions about the Swiss national past.

The story he tells is not that of a quiet country, famous for its neutrality and internal harmony, placidly unconcerned with the troubles that have long plagued the rest of Europe.

The Swiss Confederation is one of the numerous states that arose out of the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, but it differs from all the rest both in its origin and in its characteristics. Whereas elsewhere the German states owed their origin to princely houses, which had brought together their various domains by inheritance, by marriage, and by conquest, Switzerland grew out of the voluntary union of small communities to form a republican federation of states. In Germany the political obligations which the imperial central government had proved incapable of discharging, fell to the temporal and ecclesiastical princes; but in Switzerland these obligations were taken over by a union of cities and rural districts, the freedom of which was firmly established in the struggle against the dominion of the Habsburgs.

However, this mosaic of small, virtually independent states lacked cohesion. There was no thought of a Swiss national identity and states were left to form ad hoc alliances among themselves. Within the states, each community, urban or rural, rich or poor, thought only of its own particular prerogatives and privileges and obstinately fought to preserve them, usually at the expense of the general good. Consequently, Switzerland remained impoverished and politically inept. Its only source of wealth was its highly trained and disciplined mercenaries, feared and respected throughout Europe. The country was able to remain intact only because of its famed neutrality, but the term had a different meaning then -- its soldiers fought on all sides.

With the Reformation, came even more discord. Horrible crimes were committed in disputes over such matters as the meanings of the Eucharist and the display of images. The Swiss fought, exiled, mutilated, tortured, and massacred each other by the thousands. The country was not brought out of this medieval nightmare until the influence of the Enlightenment philosophers such as Rousseau and Voltaire began to be felt and the wars of the French Revolution had run their course. It was then that Switzerland emerged as a free, united, and prosperous country admired throughout Europe as the model of an enlightened state.

Lieutenant John H. Parker was the commander of the U.S. Army s experimental Gatling Gun Detachment which took part in the Spanish American War of 1898. This is his first-hand account of that unit s experiences. Included are appendices containing official reports concerning the Detachment s provisioning, deployment, logistics, operations, and performance.

Cover Photo: Victoria Wagner and crew fire Gary Harper s Gatling gun in this picture taken by Clarence Alford at the Old Fort MacArthur Days Living History and Fundraiser event in 2011.

When the revised theory of quantum mechanics, postulating a probabilistic rather than a deterministic universe, was first introduced in the 1920s, Albert Einstein famously refused to believe that God plays dice with the universe, and he spent the rest of his life trying to prove it.

Quantum theory, however, survived his efforts, and it seems that the universe is very much based on random probabilities. The universe has not descended into chaos because random events are strictly governed by the universal laws of mathematics, a fact that casinos depend upon. So the odds of a broken teacup spontaneously reassembling itself, are not impossible, just extremely unlikely.

In 1812, long before quantum theory was ever proposed, the French scholar, Pierre-Simon Laplace, issued his Theorie analytique des probabilites in which he laid down many of the fundamental mathematical principles governing probability. Two years later, he wrote this book concerning the philosophy behind his theory. Although its application to gambling is obvious, his theory applies to many scientific fields.

Enjoyment of this work, which is a 1906 translation from French into English by two American university professors, does not require a deep understanding of mathematics to enjoy and appreciate.

Charles Philip Stewart Clarke (1871 to 1947) was a prominent Anglican priest and author who wrote numerous works on religion. This history describes the transformation of Christianity from its inception as a small and obscure sect, persecuted by the state and despised by the general population, to become the state religion of the mighty Roman Empire. It is an objective study of the religious philosophies current in Rome during the early days of the church, the dissensions within the Church; the imperial persecutions, the various heresies, the rival religions, and the many writers who helped to define Christianity. The attitudes of early Christians toward family life, women, virginity, business, amusements, military service, and slavery, are described. Clarke describes the guidelines that the church fathers established for a Christian lifestyle. He discusses the rituals, organization, and discipline of the early Church. He describes the forty year truce with the Empire during which the Church experienced unprecedented expansion and wealth, and paganism attempted to revive itself. He concludes with the terrible ten years of persecution under the emperor Diocletian, after which the Church and the Empire finally became reconciled under Constantine the Great.

David Hume (7 May 1711 to 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment.^[In 1754 to 1762 Hume published the History of England, a six-volume work of immense sweep, which extends, says its subtitle, From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 . Inspired by Voltaire s sense of the breadth of history, Hume widened the focus of history, away from merely Kings, Parliaments, and armies, to literature and science as well. He argued that the quest for liberty was the highest standard for judging the past, and concluded that after considerable fluctuation, England at the time of his writing had achieved the most entire system of liberty, that was ever known amongst mankind.

This Volume I of the Chronicon Edition covers the period from Julius Caesar s invasion of England to the reign of King John.

Go to the Index page to see other available books in this six-volume series.

The Holy Roman Empire was, according to Voltaire, neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. But it was long-lived, complex, brutal, important, and fascinating, as is evident from the reading of this notable work published in 1871 by the English jurist, historian and politician, James Bryce (1838 to 1922). Bryce concentrates his considerable erudition on the meaning and significance of the empire s existence rather than on its chronology. This is an essential work for the understanding of western history.

John Gifford was an English historian who published his history of France in 1791. This is the first volume which covers the Gaulic, Roman, Merovingian, and Carolingian periods, including the reigns of Clovis and Charlemagne and the era of Frankish domination. It is the first of a six-volume series which extends to the overthrow of the Kingdom of France during the French Revolution

This colorful memoir by Agnes, Princess zu Salm-Salm, a very observant American woman with an intriguingly obscure past provides a very interesting view of the realities of mid-nineteenth century life in the United States, Mexico, and Europe. She gives us a firsthand view of the American Civil War, the French intervention in Mexico, and the Franco Prussian War as those events would have been experienced by both the very powerful and the ordinary participants.

Alfred Thayer Mahan (September 27, 1840 to December 1, 1914) was a United States Navy flag officer, geo-strategist, and historian, who has been called the most important American strategist of the nineteenth century. His concept of sea power was based on the idea that countries with greater naval power will have greater worldwide impact; it was most famously presented in The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660 1783 (1890). The concept had an enormous influence in shaping the strategic thought of navies across the world, especially in the United States, Germany, Japan and Britain, ultimately causing a European naval arms race in the 1890s, which included the United States. His ideas still permeate the U.S. Navy Doctrine.

This study of the naval aspects of the War of American Independence was first published in 1913. It is a professional analysis of the military strategies and major fleet actions that governed the outcome of the American Revolution -- a war that involved the great fleets of Britain, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic, and ranged from Lake Champlain in upstate New York, to the West Indies, to Chesapeake and Narraganset Bays, and deep into the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

The Story of Troy by Michael Clarke. In this book we are to tell the story of Troy, and particularly of the famous siege which ended in the total destruction of that renowned city. It is a story of brave warriors and heroes of 3000 years ago, about whose exploits the greatest poets and historians of ancient times have written. Some of the wonderful events of the memorable siege are related in a celebrated poem called the Iliad, written in the Greek language. The author of this poem was Homer, who was the author of another great poem, the Odyssey, which tells of the voyages and adventures of the Greek hero, Ulysses, after the taking of Troy.

Included in this edition is a tabulation of Homer s famous Catalogue of Ships which lists the commanders, tribes, nations, cities, and towns which participated in the Greek and Trojan alliances, along the with the numbers of ships contributed by each member of the Greek alliance.

This is the first of three volumes. In Volume I William Robertson discusses the state of Europe prior to the accession of the emperor Charles V, the great Hapsburg ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, Germany, Austria, the Spanish monarchy, the colonial empire in the Americas, much of Italy, and the Netherlands. He provides a detailed examination of the social, political, military, economic and religious conditions that formed Europe as it existed at the end of the fifteenth century when it began to acquire the power that allowed it to dominate the world stage for the next 500 years.

William Robertson (1721 to 1793) was a Scottish historian, Presbyterian minister, Royal Chaplain to King George III, Historiographer Royal, and Principal of the University of Edinburgh.

W.F. Butler: The Lombard Communes is a detailed history of the cities of Medieval northern Italy, the heart of the former Western Roman Empire where civilization was gradually reawakening after the devastating invasions of the Gothic and Lombard barbarians. It was a long and painful process. Warfare was continuous and vicious. On Italy s mountains and plains, the Holy Roman Empire fought against the Lombard League, Popes fought German emperors, Guelfs fought Ghibellines, cities fought cities, towns fought towns, merchants fought the nobility, families fought families. Rivalries were matters of life and death, prosperity or exile. Ruthless opportunists thrived or suffered brutal deaths. Alliances constantly shifted.

In spite of it all, the incredible spirit of the Italian people prevailed and civilization was rebuilt. The cost was enormous but out of the chaos came the Renaissance.

This work was published in 1855 by the American historian, John Lothrop Motley. It is a history of the Netherlands from 1555 to 1584 and describes the agonizing struggles of the Dutch to gain independence from the Spanish Hapsburg empire.

"A great naval and commercial commonwealth, occupying a small portion of Europe but conquering a wide empire by the private enterprise of trading companies, girdling the world with its innumerable dependencies in Asia, America, Africa, Australia exercising sovereignty in Brazil, Guiana, the West Indies, New York, at the Cape of Good Hope, in Hindostan, Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, New Holland having first laid together, as it were, many of the Cyclopean blocks, out of which the British realm, at a late: period, has been constructed must always be looked upon with interest by Englishmen, as in a great measure the precursor in their own scheme of empire."

The origins of the Etruscans who ruled northern Italy in the area around Tuscany from around 800 to 264 BC, when they were finally conquered by the Romans, have long been a mystery to historians, both ancient and modern. They seem to be an entirely foreign presence in Europe. They had no literature and the only histories about them were written by the historians of Rome and Greece. The only written evidence they left behind are the numerous inscriptions contained in their family tombs. In this work, published in 1874, the English philologist, Isaac Taylor, presents a convincing case that they came to Italy from the Siberia and were a branch of what he called the Ugrian family of nations, a classification based on linguistic rather than racial considerations. The Ugrians included the Magyars, Finns, Mongols, Turks, Huns and the many other nomadic nations who, in ancient times, shared the great Eurasian continent with the various Aryan and Semitic nations.

Taylor s conclusions are based on a detailed philological analysis of the numerous extant Etruscan inscriptions as compared with the other known languages of Eurasia, along with similar comparison of mythology, family structure, construction techniques, and living habits. Although his ideas do not seem to have been generally accepted, it is difficult to believe that they can be easily dismissed.

Charles William Chadwick Oman, KBE (1860 1946) was a British military historian of the early 20th century. His reconstructions of medieval battles from the fragmentary and distorted accounts left by chroniclers were pioneering. His style is an appealing mixture of astute analysis and dramatic narrative. He was born in Muzaffarpur district, India, the son of a British planter, and was educated at Oxford University. In 1881 he was elected to a Prize Fellowship at All Souls College, where he would remain for the rest of his career. He was elected the Chichele Professor of modern history at Oxford in 1905, serving as President of the Royal Historical Society (1917 1921), the Numismatic Society and the Royal Archaeological Institute.

Oman was a Conservative member of Parliament for the University of Oxford constituency from 1919 to 1935, and was knighted in 1920.

This Chronicon edition is the first volume of a two-volume edition, first published in 1898. It is a critical analysis of the military strategy and tactics employed by the Romans, Byzantines, Franks, Goths, Lombards, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Magyars, Arabs, Turks, and Crusaders during the early Medieval period from the later days of the Roman Empire to the Crusade of St. Louis. It describes the weapons and armor used by these various peoples, and it provides dramatic accounts of many of the battles fought during this turbulent period, such as, Adrianople, Hastings, Manzikert, Tiberias (Hattin), and others.

Charles Francis Adams II (May 27, 1835 to May 20, 1915) was a member of the prominent Adams family. He served as a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War. After the war, he was a railroad regulator and executive, president, successively, of the Union Pacific Railroad, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the American Historical Association. His writings and addresses both on problems of railway management and on historical subjects frequently gave rise to widespread controversy.

In this work, first published in 1886, Adams writes with impressive expertise and clarity on the origins of and problems with the railroads in Europe and America. The section on origins is devoted mostly to some of the more entertaining and naively charming first-hand accounts of the opening ceremonies for, and early excursions on the first primitive railroads in Britain, South Carolina and Massachusetts. In the section on problems he describes the approaches taken by various countries to construct, operate, and regulate their railroad systems, especially in the United States where unbridled competition was the rule.

At the time he wrote this work, American railroads were almost entirely unregulated and were engaged in ruthlessly self-destructive warfare with each other at great cost to the nation. He applies his considerable expertise to the problems associated with railroad services, regulations, competition, monopolies, associations, and responsibilities, and he offers well-considered opinions on how these problems needed to be solved taking into consideration the peculiar character of America and Americans.

Railroads, written by a significant historian with considerable practical as well as academic experience, is both an important and an enjoyable read for any student of American history and business.

Because of their many accomplishments, the ancient Phoenicians are often written about, but comprehensive works about them are comparatively rare. This history by George Rawlinson, first published in 1889, is one of the exceptions. His vivid portrait shows them to be incredibly daring navigators; intrepid merchants who brought the essentials and amenities of civilization to western Asia, southern Europe, and northern Africa; courageous and resourceful defenders of their great cities against the most powerful empires of the ancient world; designers and builders of the first ships capable of sailing the open ocean; inventors of the world s first practical alphabet; skilled craftsmen whose services and products were sought after by foreign kings and nations. Their merchants were honored and respected for their honesty and the quality of their goods. They were developers of much of the mining and metallurgical technology that made the Bronze Age possible.

Specific accomplishments of the Phoenician league of independent city states which still resonate in our own era, include the design and decoration of the Temple of Solomon, one of the architectural wonders of the world. They were the first to circumnavigate Africa, two thousand years before the Portuguese managed the feat. They founded the great Carthaginian state that contended with Rome for domination of the Mediterranean basin. They conducted the heroic defenses of Tyre against the Assyrians, Persians and Alexander the Great, yet their pragmatic approach to foreign relations enabled them to survive and prosper in spite of the invasions by a series of overwhelmingly powerful and ruthless conquerors. Their essential pragmatism was probably the reason their ancient culture and religion (a pagan religion marred by alleged child sacrifice and temple prostitution) were, in the end, quietly absorbed into those of Greece, Rome, and, ultimately, Christianity without a serious struggle. Pragmatism may also be the reason that they never created a great literature that would have perpetuated their renown. For them, the alphabet was merely a practical tool of commerce.

In 1921, when this book was first published, the city of Butte, Montana had become the richest and most notorious mining camp in the world. Planted amidst the remote splendor of the Rocky Mountains on top of the greatest deposit of metal wealth ever discovered, it required enormous infusions of capital and a vast army of laborers to extract that wealth from nature s deep granite vaults. According to the author, at least 52 nationalities were represented in the workforce imported by the eastern capitalists to make it all possible, and these miners and merchants brought with them many of their own diverse traditions, creating a cultural amalgamation like no other. Butte, rich beyond imagination, soon became a magnet for every kind of dreamer, striver, builder, reformer, schemer, opportunist, exploiter, corruptor, prostitute, thief, and charlatan known to mankind. It became a stage for triumph and disaster where anything could happen, a city of dreams fulfilled and dreams broken. The world had never seen anything like it.

The author, George Wesley Davis, had experienced it all. He had come to Butte as a young man from Iowaville, Iowa to deliver a herd of beef cattle and cases of whiskey to the ravenous city. He stayed on to become a newspaper reporter and prominent businessman with a deep affection for his adopted city, both for its virtues and its faults. In these Sketches, he describes not the well-documented stories of the ruthless mining companies, subservient courts, and corrupt politics. Instead, he provides a first-hand account of day-to-day life in a truly unique city at a time when the ephemeral nature of Butte s wealth was just beginning to become apparent. He writes about miners, cowboys, vigilantes, farmers, hack drivers, whores, swells, millionaires, merchants, paupers, opium fiends, domestic architecture, the great influenza pandemic of 1918, and the imposition of Prohibition. At the end, he laments the exodus of the old-money class, a circumstance that gave the first hint that all that wealth was destined to go elsewhere and the people of Butte, who had created it at great cost to their own well-being, would eventually be left with almost nothing but a vast hole in the ground filled with toxic waste.

Though an educated, well-traveled, and broad-minded businessman, Davis was certainly a product of his times, as is readily evident from his writing style. It is a style worth noting, however, as it gives us a deeper picture of the times in which he lived.

Charles Francis Adams II (May 27, 1835 to May 20, 1915) was a member of the prominent Adams family. He served as a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War. After the war, he was a railroad regulator and executive, president, successively, of the Union Pacific Railroad, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the American Historical Association. His writings and addresses both on problems of railway management and on historical subjects frequently gave rise to widespread controversy,

In this work, first published in 1911, Adams writes with impressive clarity and fresh perspective a severe critique of George Washington s military abilities as opposed to his qualities of character that made him a great leader; the strategic aspects of the American Revolution; and the need for American historians of that period to refrain from sacrificing the truth to patriotic self-indulgence. He describes the War of 1812 s battle of New Orleans from a British perspective.

Moving on to the Civil War, he discusses the moral and constitutional rights of the States to secede from the Union; the South s tragic self-delusion that led to war; the decisive role of the Union s naval blockade of the South; the consequential incompetence of Union general, Benjamin Butler; and the rules of war with respect to Sherman s march to the sea. He delivers a thoughtful dissertation on the nature of Robert E. Lee s treason, his actions at Gettysburg, and the profound significance of his conduct at Appomattox. He describes the diplomatic maneuvering during the Civil War by the United States and the Confederacy for the purpose of influencing British and French policies flavored with a lesson about the unreliability of eyewitness accounts as an historical resource.

Studies, Military and Diplomatic, written by a significant historian with considerable practical as well as academic experience, is both an important and an enjoyable read for any student of American history.

History of the Indian Navy by Charles Rathbone Low: This is the first of four volumes originally published in 1877 (two volumes) and covers the history of the Indian Navy from 1613 to 1816 when it was called the Bombay Marine and served as the naval arm of the British East India Company. It is, essentially, a tale of high adventure at a time when the British and other European countries had no distinct technological advantages over the Asian powers they encountered as they sought to expand their wide-ranging mercantile empires. It is filled with harrowing first-hand accounts of these adventures in distant lands that, by their very nature, could never avoid being romanticized by later generations.

The Bombay Marine was formed to protect the East India Company s merchant ships from the pirates of the Malabar coast and the Portuguese warships that sought to preserve Portugal s lucrative monopoly in the Indian Ocean trade. Most of its little-known battles were fought on a small-scale against the ships, boats, and strongholds of Arab, Malay, and Indian pirates, and such English buccaneers as Captains Kidd and Avery, in exotic locations, ranging across the southern oceans from the Red Sea, to the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, the East Indies, and as far east as the China Sea. It soon, however, became an instrument of empire and was involved in sea battles with and against the naval forces of the Mogul emperors, the shahs of Persia, the Maratha (Mahratta) Rajahs, and the ships of the Dutch and French colonial empires.

The three subsequent volumes of Charles Low s History of the Indian Navy will chronicle the transformation of the East India Company s Bombay Marine to the British Empire s Indian Navy, and its ultimate and much regretted disbandment in 1863.

This new edition of the original work which was a type-written report prepared in 1959 by the Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army. It has been reformatted for easier reading, but no information has been left out.

This original volume was intended to be a reference source and an aid to research, for use by military professionals and historians. It is concerned with the organization and disposition of the United States Army ground forces that opposed the Japanese during World War II. The area covered includes Alaska, the islands of the central and south Pacific, Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, the Philippines, Okinawa, China, Burma, and India.

It tracks the movements of the tactical units from the day of Pearl Harbor to the surrender of the Japanese forces on August 15, 1945. It examines in precise detail the enormous administrative and logistical effort required to support combat operations in the Pacific Theater. It provides basic information on the following subjects: activations; training, reorganizations; redesignations; locations of units; locations of command posts; missions; operations; designations, formation and dissolution of task forces; commanders; assignment of units; attachment of units; and intraservice command relationships.

In 1016, the ruthlessly ambitious, but obscure, knights of the Norman House of Hauteville came to southern Italy and managed to create a kingdom of their own. Under its first king, Roger II, the Kingdom of Sicily, which included southern Italy, became the most cosmopolitan, tolerant, and enlightened state in Medieval Europe, where Muslims, Christians, Greeks, Normans, Lombards, Italians, Arabs, and Jews lived in relative harmony. By virtue of its strategic location and powerful navy it was at the center of the Mediterranean world. It was coveted by the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Almohad and the Fatimid Caliphates. Eventually, the Hauteville kings succumbed to the Hohenstauffen emperors, where the author ends his history, even though the kingdom continued on as a powerful and enlightened vassal state of the Holy Roman Empire.

The author, Edmund Curtis, 1881 to 1943, was a professor of history at Trinity College in Dublin from 1914 to 1939, and an editor of Irish historical documents. His work, Roger of Sicily, covers Sicily s Norman period from 1016 to 1154.

The Secret Societies of all ages and countries by Charles Heckethorn: Originally published in 1875, Heckethorn s book is a comprehensive account of the many secret societies with hidden agendas and esoteric doctrines that have been in existence since at least the time of the Egyptian Pharaohs up to the date of its publication. He classifies secret societies as follows: 1. Religious societies such as the Egyptian or Eleusinian Mysteries. 2. Military societies like the Knights Templar. 3. Judiciary societies such as the German Vehmgerichte. 4. Scientific societies like the Alchymists. 5. Civil societies typified by the Freemasons, and 6. Political societies such as the Carbonari. There are also accounts of the Cabala, Gnostics, Illuminati, Druzes, Druids, Fenians, Rosicrucians, Communes, trade unions, and many others, some well-known, others so obscure that their very existence is doubtful.

His writing is full of 19th century English prejudices but is, never-the-less, highly informative. It also reveals much about the social turmoil that troubled western Europe during the century in which he lived.

George Payne Rainsford James (August 9, 1799 June 9, 1860), was an English novelist and historical writer, the son of a physician in London. He was for many years British Consul at various places in the United States and on the Continent. He held the honorary office of British Historiographer Royal during the last years of William IV s reign.

His The History of Chivalry was published in 1857 and provides a detailed account of the precepts of medieval chivalry, and the various orders, such as the Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, which came into existence during the Crusades.

Friedrich Schiller s classic history of the savage war of religion that devastated Germany and tore apart the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church during the years 1618 to 1648. It was the time of Gustavus Adolphus, the Hapsburg Emperor Ferdinand II, Cardinal Richelieu, Albrecht von Wallenstein, terrible battles, starvation, social collapse, and intolerable suffering.

Friederich Schiller (1759 to 1805) was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. In this work, Schiller provides a perceptive description of how a religious war became a political war which forever transformed the politics of Europe. The English translator of this edition was the Reverend Alexander James William Morrison (1806 to 1865).

This volume contains the full texts of eight documents composed by the founding fathers which established the United States of America in its present form. Included are The Articles of Association, The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation, the Constitution with the amendments, and four other documents of critical importance.

Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman, KBE (1860 1946) was a British military historian of the early 20th century. His reconstructions of medieval battles from the fragmentary and distorted accounts left by chroniclers were pioneering. His style is an appealing mixture of astute analysis and dramatic narrative. He was born in Muzaffarpur district, India, the son of a British planter, and was educated at Oxford University. In 1881 he was elected to a Prize Fellowship at All Souls College, where he would remain for the rest of his career. He was elected the Chichele Professor of modern history at Oxford in 1905, serving as President of the Royal Historical Society (1917 1921), the Numismatic Society and the Royal Archaeological Institute.

This work should not be confused with his later, more detailed, two-volume work, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages which is also available from Chronicon Books (see Index).

Oman was a Conservative member of Parliament for the University of Oxford constituency from 1919 to 1935, and was knighted in 1920.

This work, published in 1885, is a perceptive study of the battle tactics that prevailed during the Middle Ages in the later Roman empire, the Byzantine empire, the Swiss confederation, Spain, England, France and Bohemia.

Claude Reignier Conder, 1848 to 1910, was a British soldier, explorer and antiquarian. Conder was educated at University College London and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He became a lieutenant in the Corps of Royal Engineers in 1870. He carried out survey work in Palestine in 1872 1874, latterly in conjunction with Lt. Kitchener, later Lord Kitchener, whom he had met at school, and was seconded to the Palestine Exploration Fund from 1875 to 1878 and again in 1881 and 1882, when he was promoted captain. He retired with the rank of colonel in 1904.

The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem is a history of the Crusader kingdom from its foundation in 1099, during the dramatic First Crusade, to its end in 1291. Conder describes its notable characters, enemies, institutions, military establishment, economy, laws, and its many campaigns and battles.

The object of this volume is, however, not so much to relate the history of Crusades, as to present a picture of the curious social conditions which resulted from the establishment of a feudal society amid Oriental surroundings, and to trace the growth of civilisation and prosperity during the two centuries of Latin rule. The period is one of the most interesting in history, and the results of Frank colonisation in Palestine were far-reaching and important.

Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher, OM, FRS, PC (March 1865 to April 1940) was an English historian, educator, and Liberal politician. He served as President of the Board of Education in David Lloyd George s 1916 to 1922 coalition government. Fisher was a tutor in modern history at the University of Oxford. In 1912, he was appointed (with others) as a member of the Royal Commission on the Public Services in India. Between 1913 and 1917 he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield. In 1916 Fisher was elected Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam.

In this first of two volumes, originally published in 1898, Fisher describes the workings of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany during the Medieval period, both in theory and in practice. The concept of a universal empire was more powerful in Europe than the actual state that was formed around it. Fisher explores the remarkable survival of the Roman imperial idea after the fall of Rome in 476. He discusses the tribes and tribal confederations that eventually coalesced into a national state. He describes the workings of the German monarchy; the legislative processes in Germany; the Imperial court relative to the laws of inheritance; Imperial finances; and the status of the German nobility. He offers analyses of how each of these factors contributed to the Empire s inherent weakness and its ultimate failure.

Index of Available Books