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‘The catastrophe of the fall of Rome, with all that its fall signified to the fifth century, came very near to accomplishment in the third. There was a long period when it seemed as though nothing could save the Empire. Her prestige sank to the vanishing point. Her armies had forgotten what it was to win a victory over a foreign enemy. Her Emperors were worthless and incapable. On every side the frontiers were being pierced and the barriers were giving way...’
Constantine the Great is a fascinating and in depth historical examination of the reorganisation of the Empire after its catastrophic fall, and the subsequent triumph of the Christian Church.
Firth, in a grounded approach to the period, questions whether Constantine really did deserve his epithet ‘the Great’ in real life, leaving it to his readers to make up their own minds.
What he does assert, though, is that under Constantine’s auspices, one of the most momentous upheavals in history took place. Constantine’s conversion to Christianity – the first of any Roman Emperor – caused shockwaves across the Roman world, and it is this that makes this period such an exciting and important area of study.
John B. Firth, a scholar of Queen’s College, Oxford, authored several other titles including Augusts Caesar, studied closely vast and numerous original authorities, all of whom, he jokes, ‘were bitter and malevolent partisans’. With the truth thus so distorted by personal agendas and decayed through the annals of time, Firth made it his priority to meticulously research with an impartial eye in order to produce the most historically accurate account. Constantine the Great is wonderful feat of scholarship, and a must-read for any Roman enthusiast.
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First published in 1888, this classic collection of Persian histories is brought to life once again.
Containing the conquest of Alexander the Great, Persia’s conflict with Islam, as well as the fascinating legends on which Persia was founded.
There is the tale of a young prince who becomes his father’s worst enemy.
A story of two sons consumed with jealousy who plot to murder their brother.
A scorned lover gains the ability to lift unimaginable weights.
There are two Persian queens, many assassinations, intrigue, murder, death and glory.
This unique approach to history, mixing detailed accounts and analysis with ancient myths, makes for both an informative and entertaining read.
On the 1 July, 1916, 20,000 British troops lost their lives during the first day of the Somme.
Artillery had barraged the German lines for seven days, but the Germans were heavily dug in and many shells failed to explode due to the wet ground.
The bombardment signalled to the Germans that the British were coming, so once it had finished they emerged from their fortifications ready to face, and destroy, the enemy offensive.
But the Battle of the Somme was far more than just the 1 July 1916.
The four and a half month battle raged on until November 1916 and saw the introduction of the Tank, the creeping barrage and the development of air power.
Published as a short work just a year after the battle, John Buchan’s account of the first two phases of the Battle of the Somme, one of bloodiest battles of the Great War, leap off the page a century on.
Buchan goes beyond the first day of the Somme to provide a valuable account of the extended battle and the strategy used.
He describes the manoeuvres and the generals who led thousands of troops, and also deliberates on the nature of war and the state of mind needed by the men facing such a terrible battle.
As a war correspondent in France for The Times from 1915 Buchan was well placed to comment on such events.
The Battle of the Somme is a classic contemporary account of the one of the key battles of the First World War by one of the finest writers of the era.
John Buchan, first Baron Tweedsmuir of Elsfield, was born in Perth, Scotland in 1875. In 1900, Buchan moved to London, and two years later accepted a civil service post in South Africa. In the years leading up to World War I, he worked at a publishers, and also wrote Prester John (1910) — which later became a school reader, translated into many languages — as well as a number of biographies. In 1915 he published his most well-known book, the thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps. After the war he became a director of the news agency Reuters. Buchan would eventually publish some one hundred books, forty or so of which were novels, mostly wartime thrillers. In the latter part of his life he worked in politics, serving as Conservative MP for the Scottish universities and Lord High Commissioner of the Church of Scotland (1933-34). In 1935, Buchan moved to Canada, where he became the thirty-fifth Governor General of Canada. He died in 1940, aged 64.
“Of the men whom the world currently terms Self-Made … our American Franklin stands highest” - Horace Greeley
Benjamin Franklin is sixty-eight years old when this second volume of his life’s story begins...
Through his incredible transformation from a runaway apprentice into one of the founding fathers of America, it is possible that Benjamin Franklin lived more in his life than any other man. And yet, his journey to becoming a founding father was not without its turmoil - it meant cutting ties with his son, leaving his country, and setting in motion the events that would unravel the French Aristocracy.
Chronicling his deterioration in health and the loss of his wife as he moved from his sixties into his seventies and eighties, this account demonstrates how Franklin nonetheless persisted in wringing every last drop out of his life. From being beloved in Versailles and a victorious peace-broker, to his position as three-time president of the Assembly of the State of Pennsylvania and crafting the American Constitution, it upholds Walter Isaacson’s view of Franklin as ‘the most accomplished American of his age’.
This second and final volume of James Parton’s Franklin biography is transcendent. A bright and compelling work that combines Franklin’s intensely personal letters to his wife and sister with quotes from some of the most famous texts in American history, The Life of Benjamin Franklin is a must read.
James Parton (1822-1891) moved with his family from England to the United States when he was five years old. After studying in New York and becoming a schoolmaster there and in Philadelphia, Parton started his writing career. He focused on the lives of the great men and women of his day, such as Thomas Jefferson, Horace Greeley, Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin. Imbuing traditional biographies with stylistic qualities borrowed from fiction, his novel approach quickly earned him a spot as the most popular biographer of his day. Harriet Beecher Stowe thanked him "for the pleasure you have given me in biographical works which you have had the faculty of making more interesting than romance—(let me trust it is not by making them in part works of imagination)."
Originally published in 1907, Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office documents Fred W. Allsopp’s lengthy experience working in the offices of the Arkansas Gazette.
Affectionately dubbed the ‘Old Lady’, Allsopp tells how the Arkansas Gazette experienced fluctuations in size, character, prestige, and volume of business over its eighty-seven years in print, and indeed in the twenty years Allsopp worked there.
Toward the end of his time there, the Gazette reached such a lucrative pinnacle as to afford to print a colour comic section – the marker of highest journalistic success at the time.
Unlike standard, chronological memoirs, Allsopp writes with humour, wit, and with a great sense of fun to create ‘a sort of melange or hodgepodge of things seen, heard, experienced, or imagined’, often pulling together what he calls ‘random sketches of things’ at the Arkansas Gazette. These vivid sketches are interspersed throughout the memoir with articulate and clever poems penned by the author (as well as some published in the paper by its own readers).
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office is a wonderful insight into journalistic life at the turn of the twentieth century, and makes for a truly vivacious and heart-warming read.
Frederick William Allsopp (1867 – 1946) was an author, newspaperman, book collector, and bookstore owner. Born in Wolverhampton, he moved with his family to Nevada County at the age of 12. After selling newspapers during his youth, he applied for a job at the Arkansas Gazette age just 17, and became the business manager by 1899.
This is one of the most powerful descriptions of the scourge of the First World War by a woman who was on the front lines and ultimately gave her life for the cause.
Sarah Broom Macnaughtan volunteered with the Red Cross Society when World War One broke out, and that is when she started keeping a record of what she saw.
In September 1914 she travelled to Antwerp in Belgium as part of an ambulance unit, and as Head of the Orderlies she was witness to hundreds of wounded and dying men passing through her hospital.
Her and her staff desperately tried to help them as best they could despite limited resources, and bombs falling all around them.
For her bravery and work under fire in Belgium, she eventually received the Order of Leopold.
This is the story of her life during the First World War.
Sarah Broom Macnaughtan (26 October 1864 – 24 July 1916) was a Scottish-born novelist. Sarah participated in the women's suffrage movement, aided victims of the Balkan war, performed social services for the poor in London's East End, and worked for the Red Cross during the Second Boer War. During the outbreak of the First World War, she volunteered with the Red Cross Society. Her novels include ‘Selah Harrison’, ‘The fortune of Christina M'Nab,’ ‘A lame dog's diary and The expensive Miss Du Cane.
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Published in 1937, Crozier’s ‘true confessions’ argue that if England were to go to war again, it would bring about the end of civilisation.
One of several controversial books authored by Crozier, The Men I Killed draws on his own military experiences to paint a brutal picture of war.
In depicting the horrors of life in the trenches, he focuses in particular on the pressure during the Great War for an officer at the front to ‘hold the line’ at all costs — even when this meant shooting his own men to keep them from fleeing.
This, Crozier writes, comes as a result of the need for ‘justice’ to be upheld through Force: the only way to keep a man from using his revolver and shooting, in the name of justice, is to disarm him.
Disarmament forms a key branch of the plan Crozier outlines for achieving a global peace.
Aircraft, which he writes is an evil invention that dramatically changed the nature of warfare due to its inability to be stopped and its threat to women, children, and other innocents.
Crozier also forcefully argues that as long as the Church continues to pervert Christ’s teachings through the support of warfare, and the assertion that God is on England’s side when she goes into battle, that true peace and disarmament are impossible to achieve.
The Men I Killed is a representation of a former military officer’s understanding of war and the urgent need for pacifism in the face of another rapidly approaching world war.
Brigadier General Frank Percy Crozier C.B. C.M.G. D.S.O. (1879-1937) was a British Army officer. He served in the Boer War, the First World War, the Lithuanian Wars of Independence and finally in Ireland. During this last posting he became disillusioned with the British regime and subsequently became a pacifist, writing a number of controversial books.
Sir Charles Firth’s biography of Oliver Cromwell portrays a man who was ‘both soldier and statesman in one’, a man of ‘a large-hearted, expansive vigorous nature’, one who always invokes the might of God to explain his very human acts of revenge and justice.
Frith describes the years which led to Cromwell seizing power. These years included the rise and fall of megalomaniac King Charles I, meetings of the Long Parliaments of the 1640s and the discussions concerning the newer ideas in English Christianity (Presbyterianism, Calvinism and so forth). Then came the Puritan rebellion against Charles following their Nineteen Propositions of 1642.
Throughout the 1640s and 1650s the Royalists, fighting on behalf of the King, were engaged in fighting with the Puritans, and Firth gives excellent and vivid descriptions of battle based on first-hand accounts. Assisted by the Scottish Army, the Battle of Marston Moor was a key point in the conflict, where Cromwell gained the nickname ‘Ironsides’ from his followers and ‘Lord of the Fens’ from his opponents due to his support of the rights of peasants.
In 1648 he joined the army to quell any outbreak of civil war and anarchy, persuading the soldiers to side with him and Parliament. He also formulated ‘The Agreement of the People’.
Then Ireland rose up against its Parliament, leading to Cromwell’s attempt to convert the nation to Protestantism, and England went to war with Scotland and the Netherlands.
After the execution of Charles I in 1649, Cromwell was placed at the head of the English Republic, ‘a perpetual Parliament always sitting’, which became the Little Parliament within a few years. Opposed to him were the Levellers and Presbyterians, which shows that the events had both a political and religious dimension. He also gave kindness to the Quakers and formed an alliance with France against Spain in a move that was much criticised in the years that followed.
Cromwell initially wanted to incorporate the army into how England was governed, but by 1653 civilian rule had been restored. Cromwell was given the title of Protector and set about promoting the separation of powers within government and the reform of law and the English courts system.
He also encouraged education and scholarship, which were linked with his own religious ideals to unite the branches of the English church, and hoped to secure England’s commercial and religious interests within Europe and the colonies.
Right up to his death in 1660, argues Firth in a wide-ranging and brilliant study of Puritanism and the man who stood at its head, no man exerted more influence on the religious development of England.
Charles Firth (1857-1936) was Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University and president of the Royal Historical Society. His works concerned seventeenth-century England and included Scotland and the Commonwealth.
September, 1666; carried by a strong east wind, in just four days Shakespeare’s London would disappear forever, consumed by a towering inferno.
Seventeenth century London was a scandalously populous city; scant care was given to the poor, and their dwellings were waterproofed solely by pitch.
It was only a matter of time before tragedy struck, and as a result a hundred thousand were left homeless, with many more imperilled through speculation and circumstance.
Bell goes on to point out that the Great Fire in fact may have been a mercy for London’s health, ridding her of the evils that had festered there for centuries.
The London that rose from the ashes in the following decades was different in everything that counted for human welfare, with contributions from many, including Christopher Wren.
A landmark text upon its original publication, within its evocative pages Bell uses Samuel Pepys’ Diary along with other documentation to offer an appreciation of what the Great Fire was, what it meant for London, for the people who lived there … and how she endured.
Walter George Bell F.R.A.S. (1867-1942) was an English historian and journalist. A keen astronomer from a young age, he contributed numerous articles on the subject to magazines and would continue to do produce such columns when he joined the Daily Telegraph. His candidacy for the Royal Astronomical Society was proposed in 1917. As a historian he was well-known for his works on the city of London.
It was from the Catholic Jesuit party that the Gunpowder Plotters sprung, their anger fuelled by the fact that King James had succeeded Elizabeth I.
All of these conspirators were acquainted with Father Henry Garnet, the Superior of the Jesuits in England, who was hanged for treason for his part in the plot, which aimed to capture members of the Royal Family as well as the damage to the Houses of Parliament.
Some of the conspirators were keen to pursue anarchy. These included Thomas Winter, John Wright, Thomas Percy (‘a gentleman by birth…who had gradually become a rogue’) and Robert Catesby, the man who came up with the idea of the plot itself.
Yet other members of the thirteen-strong band were cajoled and convinced to join the conspiracy, including Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham. Tresham became the eventual traitor.
Guy Faukes has gone down in stories of the plot, such as the official version printed in full at the end of this book, as the face of the attack. He had travelled to Spain to seek help in restoring the Jesuits to primacy in England, and was not as well-known in Britain which meant he could evade any spies.
Letters had been sent to prominent Catholics advising them to avoid Parliament on the chosen day (delayed from the initial date in February 1605). Much space is given to one sent anonymously to Lord Mounteagle, which led to the wider discovery of the plot. Sidney queries the author of the letter, and also argues that some men were aware of the plot even before this.
In the days after the strike was foiled, the plotters were placed in the Tower of London and began to confess of their crime, one which Sidney refers to as ‘the most atrocious crime ever devised by human brains’.
Philip Sidney (1872-1908) wrote books on politics and society, including a work on Lady Jane Grey.
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The International Bestseller
"Consistently entertaining...Honesty is abundantly apparent here--a quality as rare and commendable in elite surgeons as one suspects it is in memoirists." —The Guardian
"Disarmingly frank storytelling...his reflections on death and dying equal those in Atul Gawande's excellent Being Mortal." —The Economist
Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical frontline. There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but his love for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered.
Following the publication of his celebrated New York Times bestseller Do No Harm, Marsh retired from his full-time job in England to work pro bono in Ukraine and Nepal. In Admissions he describes the difficulties of working in these troubled, impoverished countries and the further insights it has given him into the practice of medicine.
Marsh also faces up to the burden of responsibility that can come with trying to reduce human suffering. Unearthing memories of his early days as a medical student, and the experiences that shaped him as a young surgeon, he explores the difficulties of a profession that deals in probabilities rather than certainties, and where the overwhelming urge to prolong life can come at a tragic cost for patients and those who love them.
Reflecting on what forty years of handling the human brain has taught him, Marsh finds a different purpose in life as he approaches the end of his professional career and a fresh understanding of what matters to us all in the end.
‘Seldom can so much scholarly research have been turned into such beguiling biography.’ - Sheffield Morning Telegraph
From Robin Hood to Reformists, lace-making to Luddites, and Boots the chemists to Raleigh’s bicycles, Geoffrey Trease leads us through the fascinating history of Nottingham.
Skilfully combining scholarly research with local knowledge and personal memories, this fantastically detailed account of one of Britain’s oldest cities has never been bettered.
Lauded by everyone from Sir John Betjeman to Alan Sillitoe, Nottingham: A Biography celebrates the ‘Queen of the Midlands’ in passionate and triumphant style.
The Apaches have gone down in history as one of the most legendary of all the Native American peoples.
But who were they?
They lived and roamed in the mountains and canyons in the Southwest of the United States and Northern Mexico.
In 1847 John Cremony worked for the US government, translating for military personnel across treacherous parts of the country. It was then that he first came in contact with the Apache people, and went on to learn about their ways first hand for nine years.
As a result of their time in Mexico, the tribesmen could speak Spanish with Cremony and he became the first white man to master the Apache language. Though not all their encounters were peaceful, death and uncertainty surrounded his relationship with them.
Many Americans were terrified of the Apaches, especially following the massacre at the Copper Mines of Santa Rita. Though not unprovoked, Cremony tells the story of the Apaches clever and brutal reaction to settler’s violence.
Whilst Cremony learns from the Apaches, they are equally amazed by the things he shows them, from guns and medicine to photographs and the written language.
In this insightful memoir, John Cremony talks about his time dealing with these incredible tribes. He delves in to their secret lives, revealing their highly intelligent and traditional ways.
"Like most frontiersmen of the mid-nineteenth century, John C. Cremony looked on Indians as unredeemable savages. But he knew Apaches first hand and was a keen and highly literate observer. For all its ethnocentrism, his narrative remains unsurpassed for accuracy and vivid detail among contemporary views of the Apaches. In the literature of the American West Life among the Apaches endures as a classic." Robert M. Utley
John Cremony (1815 – 1879) was an American journalist who joined the Massachusetts Volunteers in 1846, serving as a Spanish interpreter for the U.S Boundary Commission. After leaving the Volunteers, he went on to become the first editor for the San Francisco Sunday Times newspaper.
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“These battles of brains and bravery, the narrow escapes from death, the exciting adventures, are remarkable for their test of grit.”
Gallant Gentlemen is a collection of diary entries and interviews with some of the bravest men who ever lived.
It tells tale after tale of heroism and courage by the Navy during the First World War.
Chatterton gets right to the heart of each story, adding historic context to the experience of the soldiers.
From China to Italy, daring missions in the dead of night, a whole fleet of fake ships, a submarine rescue and much more can be found in this exciting and informative book.
And each story is, remarkably, true.
The First World War was a tragic period of bloodshed and horror, some of the worst of humanity.
But in these tales we find the best of humanity as well: working under pressure, helping those in need — even enemies.
The lessons we learn from history are often tragic, but Gallant Gentlemen is proof that they can also be inspiring.
“Mr Chatterton’s Sea-Stories never fail to interest.” Saturday Review
“An attractive and necessary addition to War literature.” The Times
“Besides making capital reading for all, Mr. Chatterton’s book merits the attention of naval students who will find it of great value.” Daily Telegraph
Edward Keble Chatterton (1878-1944) was a sailor and prolific writer from Sheffield. His voyages across the English Channel, to the Netherlands, around the Mediterranean and through the French canals led to many articles and books. Joining the R.N.V.R. at the outbreak of the First World War he commanded a motor launch flotilla, leaving the service in 1919 as a Lieutenant Commander. Between the wars his output included works about model ships, juvenile novels, and narrative histories of naval events; from 1939, his writing focused upon the Second World War.
“Outside frequent explosions reminded us that Fritz was still cross over a nasty prod in the vitals that we had given him.”
Alarms and Excursions: Reminiscences of a Soldier is the moving and entertaining account of Sir Tom Bridges’ life in the military.
He recalls his early life in Kent, his very British family and his time at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, as well as what he describes as an ‘interlude’ for education and marriage, amongst a distinguished military career.
Bridges’ military service begins with India and Nyassaland, where he was initially stationed.
During the Boer War Bridges fought in South Africa where he assisted in the relief of Ladysmith and Mafeking.
When the World went to war in 1914, Bridges was plunged into a new kind of war, fighting at the Marne, Yser and the Somme.
In 1918 Bridges was dispatched to Novorossik to liaise with South Russia.
Critiquing the disordered politics and the waste of life at the Somme, Alarms and Excursions is a detailed memoir of commitment and perseverance in the face of sobering events.
First published in 1896, Small Wars attempts to provide a comprehensive manual for the conduct of campaigns of imperial conquest.
C. E. Callwell draws on his own extensive experience as a colonel in the British Army and his vast array of knowledge about contemporary imperial wars to provide a comprehensive account of the strategy and tactics in conducting asymmetric warfare in the age of imperialism.
His examples are drawn from a wide assortment of historical conflicts, ranging from Hoche’s suppression of the Vendée revolt in the French Revolution, to mid-19th century Spanish wars in Morocco, to the Boer War of 1899-1902.
Throughout, Caldwell advocates the importance of morale over technology and he highlights the many ways in which traditional military theory was unsuitable to the type of guerrilla warfare often fought in the colonies.
Only by constant attack and relentless pursuit would victory be achieved.
Many of Caldwell’s insights remain valuable today and his teachings could easily be applied to recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iran.
Despite its wide-ranging application, Caldwell was quick to emphasise the sheer diversity of colonial warfare, and inside this volume he provides advice for every eventuality.
This classic of military literature is an essential read for anyone seeking to learn more about the nature of war in the years before the First World War. This version is the third revision of the book, original published in 1906.
Charles Edward Callwell (1858-1928) was an Anglo-Irish officer who ended his career as a major-general and received a knighthood for his services. He personally fought in the 1880 Afghan War, the 1880-1 First Boer War, the 1897 Greco-Turkish War and the 1899-1902 Second Boer War before retiring in 1909.
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Today the word “commando” conjures a picture of daring special forces raids, but originally it was the Boer word for a mobile column of fighting men.
This is the account of one such fighting man.
Aged just seventeen Deneys Reitz, son of the ex-President of the Orange Free State and then State Secretary of the South African Republic, took up his rifle and joined the Boer Army.
It was 1899, and tensions between Great Britain and the Transvaal Republic and Orange Free State had reached boiling point.
From their initial strikes into Natal to the surge of British troops and the transition to bloody guerrilla warfare, through luck and family ties Reitz was present at most of the major events.
Not published until 1929, ‘Commando’ remains one of the most unique and important pieces of literature about the conflict.
J. C. Smuts summed it up best in his preface: “Wars pass, but the human soul endures; the interest is not so much in the war as in the human experience behind it. This book tells the simple straightforward story of what the Boer War meant to one participant in it.”
Deneys Reitz (1882-1944) was a Boer solider, lawyer, author and politician. In the aftermath of the Second Boer War, he went into exile alongside his father and brothers, spending time in Madagascar before returning to South Africa and studying law. When WWI swept across the globe he fought alongside the British against the Germans, first in Africa and then on the Western Front, rising to command a battalion.
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Serving with the battle cruisers, Filson Young was placed at the tip of the spear as the war in the North Sea unfolded over the course of 1914-15.
In the years before the First World War, Filson Young had become friends with several notable Royal Navy leaders, including Lord Fisher and Admiral Beatty.
Following the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, Young began to miss his friends and resolved to join them and share in their experiences.
Even though volunteer officers were ridiculed, Young wrote to his friends and managed to engineer a Lieutenant’s gazette in the R.N.V.R.
Buoyed by the success of the Scarborough raid, Admiral Hipper of the Imperial German Navy sought a repeat of the exercise, this time against the fishing fleet on the Dogger Bank.
Young was there to witness it.
First published in 1921, With the Battle Cruisers is a very personal, focused study of naval life during wartime as it unfolded for Young.
Filson Young (1876-1938) was an Irish writer, journalist, war correspondent and essayist. He was noted for publishing a book about the sinking of the Titanic little over a month after the tragedy in 1912. Between November 1914 and May 1915 he served as a Lieutenant R.N.V.R.; With the Battle Cruisers was one of two books he wrote about his naval service.
The American Revolution was one of the great political upheavals of the 18th Century, during which the people of the Thirteen American Colonies overthrew the authority of Great Britain and founded the United States of America.
In this book Claude H. Van Tyne describes the revolution as a ‘civil war’ and situates the quest for independence within the contemporary political milieu, defining both the agitator and the loyalist on both sides of the Atlantic by their political, social and ideological characteristics.
In his first chapter, Van Tyne stresses the need for a revision of the ‘traditional’ view of the revolution, as a just rebellion against a brutally tyrannical king. But the author does not side with either cause, instead providing a wide range of documentation from both the colonies and the motherland, painting a detailed picture of the contemporary mood.
In the proceeding ‘lectures’ Van Tyne explores the affect on the war of various camps, first looking at the merchant classes, then the influence of religion in the Puritan and Anglican churches, the work of lawyers, then the armies, before examining the courting of the European states by American and English diplomats.
England and America: Rivals in American Revolution is an engaging study which, to this day, proves a refreshing take on the human aspects of the revolution and its causes.
First delivered as a series of lectures given to British academics in 1927, this book takes a fascinating look at the various ways in which both the American and English people opposed, or furthered the cause of American independence.
Claude H. Van Tyne (1869-1930) was an American historian, he finished his B.A. degree at the age of twenty-seven before studying in Leipzig, Heidelberg, and Paris. He finished his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania and taught at the University of Michigan for almost thirty years. He specialised in the study of the American Revolution and wrote several books on the subject, winning the Pulitzer Prize for The War of Independence in 1930. He died the same year at the age of sixty-one.
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