No ruler in modern times reigned in full sovereignty for as long as Francis Joseph, emperor of Austria and king of Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia. Titular master of central Europe from 1848 until 1916, he was center stage in Europe throughout the dramatic era in which Italy and Germany emerged as united nation states. His personal decisions were vital both to the outcome of the Crimean War and to the onset of World War I, sixty years later. Far more than a biography of a great ruler, Twilight of the Habsburgs is a social, cultural, political, and military history of Europe from the end of the Napoleonic era to the assassination at Sarajevo. Just the right balance between the story of Francis Joseph's life and the history of his times. -- The New York Times Book Review; Excellent and absorbing . . . A compelling read. -- Evening Standard (London).

Stretching 1200 miles from the Atlantic port of Agadir east to Tunisia the Atlas form one of the world's great trekking ranges. The High Atlas region in central Morocco is the most dramatic and beautiful section of the entire range. Includes full practical details - getting to Morocco, town guides and maps to Marrakech, Ouarzazate and seven other gateway towns. Routes covered on 44 detailed walking maps in the proven Trailblazer style; all walking times are indicated along with points of interest and gradients.

The businessperson's guide to saying what needs to be said and asking questions that need to be asked

In the business world, the first step to great results is good communication. Talk Lean uses original research and a fresh approach to teach businesspeople how to say difficult things and ask difficult questions in a way that is positive, effective, and comfortable for everyone involved. You'll learn how to begin meetings and conversations in a way that is succinct, empathetic, and effective, while putting people in a positive and receptive frame of mind. You'll learn how to listen and respond during meetings to maximise both productivity and empathy and how to close meetings in positive ways that lead to great results.

• Offers proven techniques for improving communication and making an impact professionally
• Written by Alan Palmer, head of Interactifs UK, which offers communication coaching to major corporate clients
• Ideal for executives, team leaders, entrepreneurs, and anyone whose success depends on great communication

This major new reference book presents more than 700 biographies of Shakespeare's contemporaries and richly illustrates the variety and complexity of the life of the period he lived. With its useful glossary of unusual terms, and extensive cross-references, this invaluable book emphasizes the cultural continuity between the last phase of Elizabethan England and the Jacobean age, and the authors also pay attention to American connections. This extensive and detailed study will be invaluable to all those interested in Shakespeare and his times.

Fictional Minds suggests that readers understand novels primarily by following the functioning of the minds of characters in the novel storyworlds. Despite the importance of this aspect of the reading process, traditional narrative theory does not include a complete and coherent theory of fictional minds. Readers create a continuing consciousness out of scattered references to a particular character and read this consciousness as an embedded narrative within the whole narrative of the novel. The combination of these embedded narratives forms the plot. This perspective on narrative enables us to explore hitherto neglected aspects of fictional minds such as dispositions, emotions, and action. It also highlights the social, public, and dialogic mind and the mind beyond the skin. For example, much of our thought is intermental, or joint, group, or shared; even our identity is, to an extent, socially distributed. Written in a clear and accessible style, Fictional Minds analyzes constructions of characters' minds in the fictional texts of a wide range of authors, from Aphra Behn and Henry Fielding to Evelyn Waugh and Thomas Pynchon. In its innovative and groundbreaking explorations, this interdisciplinary project also makes substantial use of real-mind disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, psycholinguistics, and cognitive science.

When an armistice was finally signed in the forest of Compiegne outside of Paris, the Great War had shuddered to an end, but not before it had been fought on three continents, three oceans, and nine seas. Studies of World War I tend to focus on the Western front, the muddy trenches of France and Belgium, which is particularly problematic considering the final year of the conflict, when offensives in the Balkans, the Middle East, Italy, and the West all ended with decisive victories for the Allied powers. Alan Palmer embraces the full scope of the war and illuminates many of the major players -- Allied generals Sir Douglas Haig, Sir Edmund Allenby, Ferdinand Foch, and John J. Pershing; Central Powers generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff; as well as David Lloyd George, Britain's prime minister. Victory 1918 is rife with tales of horrible misunderstandings such as the Austrian emperor Charles's appeal for peace on September 14, 1918, which was thought by the Allies to be a trick and, if taken seriously, could have saved as many as a quarter of a million lives. As he ably shifts between the diplomatic big picture and the local horrors of the trenches, Palmer presents the war in all its banality and valor.

Who's Who in Modern History is a unique reference book which examines those individuals who have shaped the political world since 1860. Coverage is truly global, including the most important figures in Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, Africa and Australasia.
It provides:
* an easy-to-use A-Z layout
* authoritative, detailed biographies of the most important figures since 1860, from Clemenceau and Chief Buthelezi to King Fahd and Benazir Bhutto
* bibliographical references for each entry, to aid further research
* extensive cross-referencing
* an essential guide for students, researchers and the general reader alike.

Ypres today is an international 'Town of Peace', but in 1914 the town, and the Salient, the 35-mile bulge in the Western Front, of which it is part, saw a 1500-day military campaign of mud and blood at the heart of the First World War that turned it into the devil's nursery.

Distinguished biographer and historian of modern Europe Alan Palmer tells the story of the war in Flanders as a conflict that has left a deep social and political mark on the history of Europe.

Denying Germany possession of the historic town of Ypres and access to the Channel coast was crucial to Britain's victory in 1918. But though Flanders battlefields are the closest on the continent to English shores, this was always much more than a narrowly British conflict. Passchendaele, the Menin Road, Hill 60 and the Messines Ridge remain names etched in folk memory. Militarily and tactically the four-year long campaign was innovative and a grim testing ground with constantly changing ideas of strategy and disputes between politicians and generals. Alan Palmer details all its aspects in an illuminating history of the place as much as the fighting man's experience.

Who's Who in Modern History is a unique reference book which examines those individuals who have shaped the political world since 1860. Coverage is truly global, including the most important figures in Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, Africa and Australasia.It provides: an easy-to-use A-Z layout authoritative, detailed biographies of the most important figures since 1860, from Clemenceau and Chief Buthelezi to King Fahd and Benazir Bhutto bibliographical references for each entry, to aid further research extensive cross-referencing an essential guide for students, researchers and the general reader alike.