John Adamson

Katherine Prior

The fascinating stories of Indian princes and their jewelry and precious stones are brought together in this sumptuously illustrated narrative tracing the rise and fall of India's leading royal houses through the dramatic fortunes of their crown jewels. Famed since antiquity as a supreme source of diamonds, rubies, and sapphires, the Indian subcontinent afforded untold symbols of power and prestige to its many kings. From the sixteenth century forward, these stone were sought with unscrupulous avidity by the crowned heads of Europe, but even the rapacity of the British Empire failed to devour all of India's treasures. In the twentieth century, in a final flowering of regal splendor, many maharajas traveled to the West to have their jewels reset by the most prestigious jewelers of Paris, London, and Rome. It is this encounter between Indian princely magnificence and the best of European jewelry design that forms the book's centerpiece. The authors offer a fresh, vigorous text drawing on original material from a wide range of government and private archives, and featuring many hitherto unpublished pictures alongside more familiar ones. From Sanskrit dramatists extolling the riches of India to the finest of modern Europe's jewelers crossing Asia in search of royal clients, a broad gamut of real voices and resplendent images brings to life the story of India's royal gems.

Maharajas' Jewels

Although many books have been written claiming to be 'new' histories of the Civil War in the past hundred years, the basic narrative they have offered has hardly changed. None has returned comprehensively to the sources and to the mass of new evidence that awaited discovery in private collections and foreign archives. John Adamson's ground-breaking book offers the first genuinely new account of England's last - and bloodiest - internal war. As a sequel to the widely acclaimed THE NOBLE REVOLT, which described the political crisis that brought about the overthrow of Charles I, THE WAR OF THE REALMS picks up the story as it reaches its bloody climax. Adamson's gripping narrative focuses on the struggle between Parliamentarians and Royalists to realize their rival political visions of Britain's future through war, diplomacy and political intrigue. But this is much more than a sequel. Adamson looks beyond the world of Westminster and the court to examine the experience of war, its impact on individual lives and families, and - perhaps most importantly of all - its massive long-term influence on the size and power of the British state, the consequences of which endure today. The book's originality and freshness of approach is driven by a truly astonishing number of archival discoveries. Personalities and motives are revealed with detail and clarity where earlier historians have had to resort to speculation and guesswork, and the dramatis personae of the English Civil War are wholly redefined. Cromwell, whose role has been wildly exaggerated by historians, recedes to the supporting part which, in reality, he played for much of the war. The real political powerbrokers of the day, the aristocratic grandees who dominated politics on both sides of the conflict, emerge from the shadows here for the first time. Old orthodoxies are overturned. THE WAR OF THE REALMS presents a magnificent new account of Britain's greatest-ever internal political crisis that is both compellingly argued and beautifully told.

The Noble Revolt Book 2

The War of the Realms

Theron Muller

Steven Herder

Philip Shigeo Brown

This collection offers a distinctly Asian voice for English language education and addresses some of the unique needs of Asian learners in EFL contexts. Teachers and researchers from nine Asian countries present some of the most current and innovative research in five distinct and fascinating areas of EFL teaching and learning.

Innovating EFL Teaching in Asia

Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Luis de Camoens

In the period between the Renaissance and the French Revolution, the court was paramount in European political and cultural life. It was not only the princes' place of residence, it functioned as the seat of government and the stage for dynastic rivalries. Tour 12 European courts and learn how households were run, how the architecture of palaces and gardens were adapted to the routines of courtly life, and what role the courts played in the princes' relations with the community.

John Adamson

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