Robert Poole

Eva Schlunke

Witnesses to a Massacre

Peterloo

On 16 August, 1819, at St Peter's Field, Manchester, armed cavalry attacked a peaceful rally of some 50,000 pro-democracy reformers. Under the eyes of the national press, 18 people were killed and some 700 injured, many of them by sabres, many of them women, some of them children. The 'Peterloo massacre', the subject of a recent feature film and a major commemoration in 2019, is famous as the central episode in Edward Thompson's Making of the English Working Class. It also marked the rise of a new English radical populism as the British state, recently victorious at Waterloo, was challenged by a pro-democracy movement centred on the industrial north. Why did the cavalry attack? Who ordered them in? What was the radical strategy? Why were there women on the platform, and why were they so ferociously attacked? Using an immense range of sources, and many new maps and illustrations, Robert Poole tells for the first time the full extraordinary story of Peterloo: the English Uprising.

The English Uprising

Robert K. Poole

Earthrise tells the remarkable story of the first photographs of Earth from space and the totally unexpected impact of those images. The Apollo “Earthrise” and “Blue Marble” photographs were beamed across the world some forty years ago. They had an astounding effect, Robert Poole explains, and in fact transformed thinking about the Earth and its environment in a way that echoed throughout religion, culture, and science. Gazing upon our whole planet for the first time, we saw ourselves and our place in the universe with new clarity. Poole delves into new areas of research and looks at familiar history from fresh perspectives. With intriguing anecdotes and wonderful pictures, he examines afresh the politics of the Apollo missions, the challenges of whole Earth photography, and the story of the behind-the-scenes struggles to get photographs of the Earth put into mission plans. He traces the history of imagined visions of Earth from space and explores what happened when imagination met reality. The photographs of Earth represented a turning point, Poole contends. In their wake, Earth Day was inaugurated, the environmental movement took off, and the first space age ended. People turned their focus back toward Earth, toward the precious and fragile planet we call home.

How Man First Saw the Earth

Earthrise

A study of England's biggest and best-known witch trial, which took place in 1612 when ten witches from the forest of Pendle were hanged at Lancaster. A little-known second trial occured in 1633-4, when up to nineteen witches were sentenced to death.

Histories and Stories

The Lancashire Witches

This book is the first major study of England's biggest and best-known witch trial which took place in 1612, when ten witches were arraigned and hung in the village of Pendle in Lancashire. The book has equal appeal across the disciplines of both History and English Literature/Renaissance Studies, with essays by the leading experts in both fields. Includes helpful summaries to explain the key points of each essay. Brings the subject up-to-date with a study of modern Wicca and paganism, including present-day Lancashire witches. Quite simply, this is the most comprehensive study of any English witch trial.

Histories and stories

The Lancashire witches

Or, Fifth Gift of Theophilus Philanthropos [pseud.] Wherein is Contain'd, The Dispensatory of St. Thomas's Hospital, with A Catalogue of the Diseases, and the Method of Their Cure Prescrib'd in the Said Hospital. To which is Also Added, the Dispensatory of St. Bartholomew's and Guy's Hospital

A Physical Vade-mecum

Thomas Potts

In this excellent new book, well-respected historian Robert Poole presents an up-to-date version of Thomas Potts's original account of the famous witch hunt of 1612, in which 19 Lancashire witches, mostly from the Pendle area, were tried at Lancaster. Of these nineteen, three were declared innocent, five were acquitted, and eleven were found guilty, ten of whom were hanged. The Lancashire witch trials were one of the most important in Britain. Thanks to the trial clerk Thomas Potts, they are also the best known. This modern account based on Potts's original text summarizes the affair clearly and coherently. It probably provides the best, most authoritative general book about the 1612 witch hunt ever published. It is simply a modernized classic.

Robert Poole

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