Secondhand History & Biography Bargain Book Box SP2687

Secondhand History & Biography Bargain Book Box — 16 Books

A genuinely varied collection spanning Victorian intellectual biography, Australian political and social history, Cold War memoir, and Near Eastern archaeology. Noel Annan's masterly life of Leslie Stephen anchors the British contingent; Alexandra Hasluck, Adelaide Lubbock, and Brian Carroll represent Australian history at its most readable; and Evgeny Pasternak's intimate account of his father's tragic years under Stalin provides one of the box's most quietly devastating reads. A rewarding haul for anyone whose interests range freely across history and biography.

1. Noel Annan — Leslie Stephen: The Godless Victorian Annan's celebrated life of the Victorian intellectual giant — founding editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, mountaineer, philosopher, and father of Virginia Woolf — is one of the finest works of intellectual biography produced in twentieth-century Britain. Erudite, warm, and endlessly illuminating about the Victorian mind.
2. Alexandra Hasluck — Royal Engineer Hasluck was one of Australia's most accomplished historians, and this biography of a distinguished Victorian military figure shows her characteristic blend of archival thoroughness and elegant prose. A significant contribution to the literature of the British imperial period.
3. Helen M. Swartz & Marvin Swartz (eds.) — Disraeli's Reminiscences Disraeli kept notes on his conversations with the leading figures of Victorian society — witty, indiscreet, and sharply observed. These edited reminiscences offer an insider's view of the age from one of its most brilliant and contrary minds.
4. Elena Grainger — Martin of Martin Place: A Biography of Sir James Martin Sir James Martin — Premier and Chief Justice of New South Wales — was one of the dominant figures of colonial Australian public life, and the Sydney landmark that bears his name is a daily reminder of his significance. Grainger's biography does justice to a career of remarkable scope.
5. Martin Woollacott — After Suez: Adrift in the American Century The distinguished Guardian foreign correspondent examines the long aftermath of the 1956 Suez Crisis — the moment Britain was forced to confront the limits of its postwar power and its uncomfortable new dependence on Washington. Authoritative and still urgently relevant.
6. James Mellaart — The Neolithic of the Near East Mellaart was the excavator of Çatalhöyük, one of the world's earliest urban settlements, and a towering figure in Near Eastern archaeology. This scholarly survey of the Neolithic period remains an important reference work in the field.
7. Christopher Ogden — Legacy: A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg The story of one of America's great media dynasties: Moses Annenberg, who built a racing wire empire, and his son Walter, who turned it into a legitimate publishing fortune, founded TV Guide, and served as US Ambassador to the Court of St James's. Compelling, richly detailed, and very American.
8. Adelaide Lubbock — People in Glass Houses: Growing Up at Government House With a foreword by Geoffrey Blainey. The daughter of a Governor-General of Australia recalls a childhood spent in the formal, rarefied world of Government Houses — a memoir that illuminates the social rituals and hidden lives of Australia's vice-regal establishment.
9. Nigel Saul (ed.) — England in Europe 1066–1453 (A History Today Book) A scholarly collection examining the surprisingly deep entanglements between medieval England and continental Europe — from the Norman Conquest through the Hundred Years War. Essential reading for anyone interested in how England became England.
10. Brian Carroll — The Menzies Years Robert Menzies served as Australia's Prime Minister for a combined eighteen years — longer than any other — and shaped modern Australia more than any figure of his era. Carroll's account of those years is accessible, well-paced, and an invaluable guide to mid-century Australian politics.
11. Dan Van Der Vat — Pearl Harbor: The Day of Infamy — An Illustrated History With an introduction by Senator John McCain. Van der Vat was one of the most respected naval historians of his generation, and this illustrated account of the Japanese attack of December 7, 1941 combines rigorous scholarship with superb visual material.
12. Barry Carman & John McPherson (eds.) — Bimbashi McPherson: A Life in Egypt With a preface by Lawrence Durrell. McPherson was a British officer who spent decades in Egypt and left behind a remarkable record of a world now vanished. Durrell's involvement alone marks this out as a book with literary as well as historical interest.
13. Denton Prout & Fred Feely — Petticoat Parade A portrait of the women who shaped Australian public and social life — their collective presence largely written out of official histories but recovered here in vivid and often surprising detail.
14. Rohan Rivett — David Rivett: Fighter for Australian Science Rohan Rivett — later a celebrated and embattled newspaper editor — wrote this biography of his father Sir David Rivett, the scientist who built the CSIR (forerunner of CSIRO) into a world-class research institution. A significant chapter in the history of Australian science and public life.
15. Evgeny Pasternak — Boris Pasternak: The Tragic Years 1930–60 Written by the poet's son, this biography covers the harrowing decades in which Pasternak wrote Doctor Zhivago in secret, saw it published abroad, was awarded the Nobel Prize he was forced to refuse, and lived under the constant threat of Soviet repression. Intimate, sorrowful, and irreplaceable.
16. Laurens van der Post — Journey into Russia Van der Post travelled through the Soviet Union in the early 1960s with a writer's eye and a philosopher's temperament. The resulting book is part travel narrative, part meditation on the Russian soul — one of the more unusual and penetrating accounts of Cold War-era Soviet life.