Bøger udgivet af Pegasus Books

The incredible story of how one man went from a hired hunter to becoming one of America’s top champions for this iconic animal. **A Los Angeles Times and USA Today Bestseller**

A response to our fractured political discourse, Hobbit Virtues speaks to the importance of "virtue ethics" by examining the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien-with particular attention to his hobbits.Tolkien's works resonate with so many readers in part because Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin demonstrate Classical, Judeo-Christian, Medieval, and even Hindu and Confucian virtues.Tolkien ennobles the small, the humble, and the marginalized in his Middle-earth writings and presents leaders who are hesitant to exercise power, are courteous, and value wisdom and learning. Each chapter in Hobbit Virtuesconsists of a wide-ranging discussion of a single virtue, exemplified by a character in Middle-earth, explaining its philosophical or theological roots and how the virtue is still relevant in a modern democracy. It will also include appendices where readers can find passages in Tolkien's and Lewis's works that discuss virtue ethics, and a glossary of virtues from ancient to modern, East to West.Tolkien's readers come from many different religious and secular backgrounds and the pleasure and profundity of Hobbit Virtues is that mutual respect for public virtues is, especially now, necessary for a well-functioning pluralistic society.

Through the author's extensive connections within the royal household, this dynamic new biography tells the full story of how Catherine, the Princess of Wales, became the woman she is today. Kate Middleton's life's story seems like a modern-day fairy-tale. An attractive, clever, and ambitious girl from unexceptional beginnings meets and falls in love with a wealthy prince when they are both college undergraduates. Now, with the British monarchy in transition, Catherine is destined to become the first "commoner Queen" in British history since Anne Hyde, wife of James II. Since her wedding on April 29th, 2011--and since becoming the Duchess of Cambridge--Catherine has endeared herself to the people of the Britain and America with her extensive travels, with her infectious smile, sense of style, and down-to-earth nature. With her self-deprecation, willingness to laugh at herself, solid work-ethic--along with William's warmth, and accessibility--this dynamic duo has become the most popular members of the royal family. As interest in the royals continues to gain legions of new, younger fans, there is increasing interest in the histories and back stories of the principal players in this story. Through the author's connection with sources both on and off the record within the royal household, this dynamic new biography tells the full story of how Catherine became the woman she is today.

A moving, dramatic social history of the liberation of Paris in 1944, one of the most inspiring and momentous events of the twentieth century. The fall of Paris to the Nazis on June 14th, 1940, was one of the darkest days of World War II. And the liberation of the city on August 25th, 1944, felt like the brightest. The liberation was also the biggest party of the century: champagne flowed freely, total strangers embraced--it was a celebration of life renewed against the backdrop of the world's favorite city, as experienced by the likes of Ernest Hemingway, J. D. Salinger, Pablo Picasso, and Robert Capa. But there was nothing preordained about this happy ending. Had things transpired differently, Paris might have gone down as a ghastly monument to Nazi nihilism. Paris 1944--timed for the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Paris--tells the story of those iridescent days in a startling new way. Cutting through decades of myth-making, the reader watches the city's fate hanging in the balance against the drama, heroism, joy, and suspense of one of the most explosive moments of the twentieth century.

The life and times of Catherine de' Medici--the most powerful woman in sixteenth-century Europe--as seen through her often controversial role in religion and the arts. During an age of heightened religious conflict, Catherine de' Medici lived her life at the center of sixteenth-century European and French politics. Daughter of Lorenzo II, the Medici ruler of Florence--and then wedded to a French prince by papal decree at the age of fourteen--Catherine first became queen consort of France and then mother to three French kings (Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III) who reigned in an era of almost continuous civil and religious strife. A lavish promoter of the arts, Catherine patronized poets, painters, and sculptors; lavished ruinous sums on the building and embellishment of monuments and palaces; and masterminded spectacular entertainments and tournaments that prefigure the splendor and ritual of the court of Versailles. Catherine maintained eighty ladies-in-waiting at court; it was rumored she used these women as bait to seduce courtiers for her political ends. Her admiration for the seer Nostradamus fueled claims of her love for the occult and the dark arts. Posterity has condemned her as the epitome of the scheming royal matriarch, her reputation tainted forever by her role in instigating the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of Protestants in 1572. Catherine de' Medici: The Life and Times of the Serpent Queen is Mary Hollingsworth's evocative, authoritative biography of the most extraordiary woman of the sixteenth-century.

A panoramic social history that chronicles the quest for beauty in all its contradictions—and how it affects the female body."Women have been fat or slim, hyperthyroid or splenetic, sallow or pink-cheeked, slouched or erect, according to the prevalent notions of beauty." Cecil Beaton, The Glass of Fashion Who decides what is fashionable? What clothes we wear, what hairstyles we create, what colour lipstick we adore, what body shape is 'all the rage’. The story of female adornment from 1860- 1960 is intriguingly unbuttoned in this glorious social history. Virginia Nicholson has long been fascinated by the way we women present ourselves – or are encouraged to present ourselves – to the world. In this book we learn about rational dress, suffragettes’ hats, the Marcel wave, the Gibson Girls, corsets and the banana skirt. At the centre of this story is the female body, in all its diversity – fat, thin, short, tall, brown, white, black, pink, smooth, hairy, wrinkly, youthful, crooked or symmetrical; and – relevant as ever in this context – the vexed issues of body image and bodily autonomy. We may even find ourselves wondering, whose body is it? In the hundred years this book charts, the western world saw the rapid introduction of new technologies like photography, film and eventually television, which (for better and worse) thrust women—and female imagery—out of the private and into the public gaze.

The first narrative history revealing the entire story of the development, operation, and harmful legacy of the Native American boarding schools—and how our nation still has much to resolve before we can fully heal.

"A ground-breaking investigation into newly discovered evidence showing that remarkable things happen to our bodies and our minds when our senses connect with the natural world. Kathy Willis takes the reader on a journey with her to dig out all the experiments around the world that are looking for this evidence--experiments made easier by the new kinds of data being collected from satellites and big-data biobanks. Having a vase of roses on your desk or a green wall in your office makes a measurable difference to your well-being; certain scents in room diffusers genuinely can boost your immune system; and, in a chapter that Kathy calls "Hidden Sense," we learn that touching organic soil has a significant effect on the healthiness of your microbiome."--

The full, dramatic story behind Operation Fortitude—the biggest subterfuge of World War II—and the plan to mislead the Germans into thinking that the invasion of Europe would come at Pas-de-Calais.On May 29th, 1944, General George S. Patton gave a speech in the southeast of England to the men of the U.S. Army where he spoke of the American desire to win and of how losing was hateful to Americans. As he rose to his crescendo, he said how much he "pitied those sons of bitches we are going up against—by God, I do.” On that same day, General Omar Bradley gave a calmer speech in Somerset, England, to the men under his command about how much rested on the upcoming invasion of northern France and how vital their role was in achieving victory. Apart from the very different tones of the speeches reflecting the opposite character of the two army commanders, there was another big difference. Bradley was speaking to men who in a little over a week would be splashing ashore on the beaches of Normandy. Patton was addressing an army that didn't exist. The Army That Never Was tells the story of the biggest deception operation of World War II: the plan to mislead the Germans into thinking that the invasion of Europe would come at Pas-de-Calais instead of Normandy—by inventing an entirely fake army unit during Operation Fortitude. Full of fascinating characters from the American, British, and German forces, this compelling and propulsive narrative explores one of the most remarkable stories of World War II.

A cello has no language, yet it possesses a vocabulary wide enough to tell, bear witness, and make connections across time and continents—a feat brought to life in this brilliant new book. In this luminous narrative, Kate Kennedy, a writer and cellist herself, weaves together the story of four cellists who suffered various forms of persecution, injury, and misfortune. The stories are those of the forgotten Jewish cellist Pál Hermann, who is likely to have been murdered by the Nazis in Lithuania during the Holocaust; Lise Cristiani, another forgotten performer, who is considered to be the first female professional cello soloist and who embarked on an epic concert tour of Siberia in the 1850s taking with her a Stradivarius cello that can be seen to this day in a museum in Cremona in northern Italy; Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who played in the orchestra at Auschwitz and survived spells in both that camp and in Bergen-Belsen; and Amedeo Baldovino of the Trieste piano trio, whose 'Mara' Stradivarius was lost in a shipwreck in the River Plate between Buenos Aires and Uruguay but later recovered from the water and repaired. Interwoven with these remarkable and often moving stories are a series of 'detours' that offer a foil to these remarkable lives. Cello examines the themes explored in the narratives from different perspectives, drawing together historical research, personal experience, and interviews and encounters with contemporary cellists in this unique book that will resonate long after the final page.

A "history of the pre-Columbian Atlantic seas, Ocean is a story that begins with the formation of the mid-Atlantic ridge some 200 million years ago and ends with the Castilian conquest of the Canary Islands in the fifteenth century, providing a template for the methods used by the Spanish in their colonization of the New World. John Haywood ... argues that the perception of Atlantic history beginning with the first voyage of the celebrated Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus is a mistaken one, and that the seafaring and shipbuilding skills that enabled European global exploration and expansion did not arrive fully formed in the fifteenth century, but instead were learned over centuries and millennia in the Atlantic and its peripheral seas. The pre-Columbian history of the Atlantic is the story of how Europeans learned to master the oceans"--

"During World War II, Elzbieta Zawacka--the WWII female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo--was the only woman to reach London as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command. In Britain, she became the only woman to join the Polish elite Special Forces, known as the 'Silent Unseen.' She was secretly trained in the British countryside, and then she was the only female member of these forces to be parachuted back behind enemy lines to Nazi-occupied Poland. There, while being hunted by the Gestapo (who arrested her entire family), she took a leading role in the Warsaw Uprising and the liberation of Poland. ... Now, through new archival research and exclusive interviews with people who knew and fought alongside Agent Zo, Clare Mulley brings this forgotten heroine back to ... life--while transforming how we value the history of women resistance fighters during World War II"--

An illuminating deep-dive into everything Fleetwood Mac—the songs, the rivalries, the successes, and the failures—Dreams evokes the band's entire musical catalog as well as the complex human drama at the heart of the Fleetwood Mac story.Fleetwood Mac has had a ground-breaking career spanning over fifty years and includes some of the best-selling albums and greatest hits of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But the band's unique story is one of enormous triumph and also deep tragedy. There has never been a band in the history of music riven with as much romantic drama, sexual tension, and incredible highs and lows as Fleetwood Mac. Dreams is a must-read for casual Fleetwood Mac fans and die-hard devotees alike. Presenting mini-biographies, observations, and essays, Mark Blake explores all eras of the Fleetwood Mac story to explore what it is that has made them one of the most successful bands in history. Blake draws on his own exclusive interviews with Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and the late Peter Green and Christine McVie, and addresses the complex human drama at the heart of the Fleetwood Mac story, including the complicated relationships between the band's main members, but he also dives deep into the towering discography that the band has built over the past half-century.

A thrilling reimagining of the last days of one of the most famed Elizabethan playwrights—Christopher Marlowe—and of a love that flourishes within the margins.Christopher Marlowe: playwright, poet, lover. In the plague-stricken streets of Elizabethan England, Kit flirts with danger, leaving a trail of enemies and old flames in his wake. His plays are a roaring success; he seems destined for greatness. But in the spring of 1593, the queen's eyes are everywhere and the air is laced with paranoia. Marlowe receives an unwelcome visit from his one-time mentor, Richard Baines, a man who knows all of Marlowe’s secrets and is hell-bent on his destruction. When Marlowe is arrested on charges of treason, heresy, and sodomy—all of which are punishable by death—he is released on bail with the help of Sir Thomas Walsingham. Kit presumes Walsingham to be his friend; in fact, the spymaster has hired an assassin to take care of Kit, fearing that his own sins may come to light. Now, with the queen's spies and the vengeful Baines closing in on the playwright, Marlowe's last friend in the world is Ingram Frizer, a total stranger who is obsessed with Kit's plays, and who will, within ten days' time, first become Marlowe's lover—and then his killer. Richly atmospheric, emotionally devastating, and heartrendingly imagined, Lightborne is a masterful reimagining of the last days of one of England's most famous literary figures.

Tracing uranium's past—and how it intersects with our understanding of other radioactive elements—Chain Reactions aims to enlighten readers and refresh our attitudes about the atomic world.Chain Reactions looks at the fascinating, often-forgotten stories that can be found throughout the history of uranium. From glassworks to penny stocks; from medicines to atomic weapons; from something to be feared to a powerful source of energy, this global history explores the scientific narrative of this unique element, but also shines a light on its cultural and social impact. By understanding our nuclear past, we can move beyond the ideological opposition to technologies and encourage a more nuanced dialogue about whether it is feasible—and desirable—to have a genuinely nuclear-powered future.

A dynamic history of the Battle of Sitka that recognizes the vital importance of the Tlingit people, their fight against Imperial Russia, and how it changed the fate of the North America.

"Rosalind Frankling knows that to be a woman in a man's world is to be invisible. In the 1950s, science is a gentleman's profession and in the years after WWII there are plenty of scientists who want to keep it that way being segregated at Cambridge, then ignored and criticized in the workplace, she has no intention of being seen as a second-class scientist and throws everything into proving her worth. But despite her success in unlocking the very secret of life, the ultimate glory is claimed by the men she left in her wake. Inspired by the true story of a woman so many tried to silence, The English Chemist is a tale of hope and perseverance, love and betrayal."--Publisher description.

Travelling from ancient Greece to Victorian England, eighteenth-century France to modern America, cultural historian Elsa Richardson leads us on a lively tour of the gut, exploring all the ways that we have imagined, theorized, and probed the mysteries of the gastroenterological system. We'll meet a wildly diverse cast of characters including Edwardian bodybuilders, hunger-striking suffragettes, demons, medieval alchemists, and one poor teenage girl plagued by a remarkably vocal gut, all united by this singular organ.

In this gripping work of true crime, a criminal lawyer takes readers inside the notorious Lori Vallow case and the devastating "doomsday murders."

The passionate story of a vet’s care for all creatures great and small in the colorful, diverse, and distinctive South Atlantic islands.The role of a resident vet in the remote islands of the Falklands, St. Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha encompasses many wonderful complexities: caring for the world’s oldest living land animal (a 200-year-old giant tortoise, denizen of the St. Helena governor’s lawn); pursuing mystery creatures and invasive microorganisms; relocating herds of reindeer; and rescuing animals in extraordinarily rugged landscapes, from subtropical cloud forests to volcanic cliff faces. Hugely entertaining and affectionate, Jonathan Hollins’s tales of island vet life are not only full of ingenuity and astounding fauna—they are also steeped in the unique local cultures, history, and peoples of the islands, far from the hustle of continental life. Come join Jonathan on his daily adventures with these alluring and fascinating creatures.

**An Amazon Best Science Book of 2024** An expansive investigation into the most unifying and enduring structure in the history of life—and a story of biological richness at a moment when so much of our precious biodiversity hangs in the balance.Eggs are the origins of 90 percent of the Earth’s organisms. They can be found as far apart as deep-sea volcanoes and in space. Yet despite their fundamental importance, eggs often find themselves an afterthought in the discussion of evolution of life on Earth as the interests of scientists congregate around the things that emerge from eggs rather than the eggs themselves. In his new book Infinite Life: The Revolutionary Story of Eggs, Evolution, and Life on Earth, Jules Howard explains—with great passion, authority, expertise, and infectious enthusiasm—why it’s time to give eggs their moment in the spotlight: it is the eggs that can teach us new and surprising lessons about Earth’s history, the trials of life, and the exceptional ways in which natural selection operates to propagate the survival of individual species. Infinite Life: The Revolutionary Story of Eggs, Evolution, and Life on Earth, offers a wholly new perspective on the animal kingdom, and, indeed, life on Earth. By examining eggs from their earliest histories to the very latest fossilized discoveries—encompassing the myriad changes and mutations of eggs from the evolution of yolk, to the hard eggshells of lost dinosaurs, to the animals that have evolved to simultaneously give birth to eggs and live young—Howard reveals untold stories of great diversity and majesty to shed light on the huge impact that egg science has on our lives.

"A hymn to the rituals of farming life from the bestselling Irish author of The Farmer's Son. For John Connell, the lambing season on his County Longford farm begins in the autumn. In the sheep shed, he surveys the dozen females in his care and contemplates the work ahead as the season slowly turns to winter, then spring. The twelve sheep have come into his life at just the right moment. After years of hard work, John felt a deep tiredness creeping up on him, a sadness that he couldn't shrug off. Having always sought spiritual guidance, he comes to realize that, in addition to the soothing words of literature and philosophy, perhaps the way ahead involves this simple flock of sheep. In the hard work of livestock rearing, in the long nights in the shed helping the sheep to lamb, he can reflect on what life truly means. Like the flock that he shepherds, this book is both simple and profound, a meditation on the rituals of farming life and a primer on the lessons that nature can teach us. As spring returns and the sheep and their lambs are released into the fields, skipping with joy, John recalls the words of Henry David Thoreau, reminding us to "live in each season as it passes.""--

A revelatory new book showing how organizations need to be proactive about their culture—and how they can achieve that vital goal.All organizations have a culture, whether they acknowledge it or not—and whether it's helping or hindering them. Get it right, and culture can be a positive force for good. Get it wrong, and culture can be a negative force, becoming toxic and undermining performance and reputations. In short, culture matters. Organizational culture, though, can be a tricky thing to understand and master. The Power of Culture tackles this head-on, exploring what culture is, and why it matters; how it needs to be aligned with strategy and values; and how to understand it, change it, and make it a reality. Told through real stories and examples and using the author's Intentional Culture Circle as a guide, this new book helps everyone at work to be more aware of culture and how to find opportunities to use it for growth and success.

First published in the UK by Matador under the title: If it's not impossible... the life of Sir Nicholas Winton.

"The astonishing story of how in 1942, in Egypt, Colonel Dudley Clarke's ingenious "A Force" thwarted the Nazis while inventing a whole new playbook of military deception."--

Inspired by original research and filled with color and drama, this is an exploration of two thousand years of history as seen through one the greatest imperial networks ever built.

From the New York Times bestselling author on the psychology of persuasion: a brilliant new guide to improving your influence at work—and beyond.To be successful at work you also need to be influential at work. And to be influential requires an understanding of how the rules of influence work. Not just those mandated by logic, economics, and company policy. But the unspoken rules too. The rules people rarely talk about, but that frequently have an outsized impact on who and what gets listened to and done, and who and what gets ignored. Recognizing and navigating these rules of influence is crucial to your persuasive success. Influence at Work shows you what these rules are and how to effectively deploy them to command attention, connect with others, win over the skeptics, sway the undecided, and motivate people to act. The result is a new guide to an age-old subject: what influence is, why it matters, and how to use it wisely and ethically.

"When Martina Torres arrives in the glamorous and vibrant metropolis of Hong Kong, newly married to her high school sweetheart, the world seems to be her oyster. But looks can be deceiving. Adrift in a foreign city, with no job and no friends, Martina chafes in her new role as Expat Wife. But her luck changes when she meets Veronica Hawkins. Beautiful, sophisticated, and very, very rich, Veronica is the epitome of Old Hong Kong--the last surviving member of a British mercantile dynasty that built the city during its colonial heyday. Martina can hardly believe her fortune when she's taken under Veronica's wing and into her confidence, with Veronica helping her to find a new apartment, a new career, and most importantly, a new self. Veronica transforms Martina's life and then, shockingly, she dies. She disappears over the side of a yacht during a party attended by Hong Kong's most influential people--yet somehow there are no witnesses"--

*A Smithsonian Best History Book of 2024* An enthralling and vivid portrait of Queen Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II, that reveals her forgotten place in history.A long-overlooked figure in history, Catherine has a crucial place in the history of the British Empire: she may have failed to produce an heir to the throne, but her marriage to Charles in 1662 marked a key turning point in Britain’s imperial ascendancy, for part of her dowry was Bombay, Britain’s first territory of the Indian subcontinent. Catherine also was highly influential in the worlds of fashion, Baroque art and music, and food and culture. She popularized tea drinking, bringing England’s national drink into fashion for the first time. Her life was at the nexus of Old and New Worlds, war and exploration, frivolity, and scientific inquiry. Noteworthy in its scope and approach to sources, The Lost Queen combines personal and political accounts, offering a lively portrait of Catherine’s life, and the wider politics and explorations of her time.